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Enlarging Rainfall Area of Tropical Cyclones by Atmospheric Aerosols
Author(s) -
Zhao Chuanfeng,
Lin Yanluan,
Wu Fang,
Wang Yang,
Li Zhanqing,
Rosenfeld Daniel,
Wang Yuan
Publication year - 2018
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 - 10.1029/2018gl079427
Subject(s) - tropical cyclone , environmental science , aerosol , atmospheric sciences , climatology , flooding (psychology) , tropical cyclone rainfall forecasting , eye , effective radius , meteorology , cyclone (programming language) , geology , geography , physics , psychology , computer science , field programmable gate array , quantum mechanics , galaxy , computer hardware , psychotherapist
The size of a tropical cyclone (TC), measured by the area of either rainfall or wind, is an important indicator for the potential damage by TC. Modeling studies suggested that aerosols tend to enhance rainfall in the outer rainbands, which enlarges the eyewall radius and expands the extent of rainfall area. However, no observational evidence has yet been reported. Using TC rainfall area and aerosol optical depth (AOD) data, we find that aerosols have a distinguishable footprint in the TC size. Other dynamical factors for TC size, such as relative SST and Coriolis parameter, are also quantified and discussed. We show that, on average, TC rainfall size increases 9–20 km for each 0.1 increase of AOD in the western North Pacific. This finding implies that anthropogenic aerosol pollution can increase not only TC rainfall rate, but also TC rainfall area, resulting in potentially more destructive flooding affecting larger areas.