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A new method for attributing climate variations over the Atlantic Hurricane Basin's main development region
Author(s) -
Zhang Rong,
Delworth Thomas L.
Publication year - 2009
Publication title -
geophysical research letters
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 2.007
H-Index - 273
eISSN - 1944-8007
pISSN - 0094-8276
DOI - 10.1029/2009gl037260
Subject(s) - atlantic multidecadal oscillation , atlantic hurricane , climatology , forcing (mathematics) , radiative forcing , atlantic equatorial mode , tropical cyclone , environmental science , tropical atlantic , sea surface temperature , climate change , geology , oceanography
We propose a new approach to decompose observed climate variations over the Atlantic Hurricane Basin's main development region (MDR) into components attributable to radiative forcing changes and to internal oceanic variability. Our attribution suggests that the observed multidecadal anomalies of vertical shear (Uz) and a simple index of maximum potential intensity (SIMPI) for tropical cyclones are both dominated by internal variability, consistent with multidecadal variations of Atlantic Hurricane activity; changes in radiative forcing led to increasing Uz and decreasing SIMPI since the late 50's, unfavorable for Atlantic Hurricane activity. Physically, at least for the GFDL model, sea surface temperature (SST) anomalies induced by ocean heat transport variations are more efficient in producing negative Uz anomalies than that induced by altered radiative forcing.