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Historical Variability of Southwest Pacific Tropical Cyclone Counts Since 1855
Author(s) -
Magee A. D.,
VerdonKidd D. C.
Publication year - 2019
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 - 10.1029/2019gl082900
Subject(s) - hindcast , climatology , tropical cyclone , context (archaeology) , cyclogenesis , oceanography , sea surface temperature , historical record , geology , environmental science , geography , cyclone (programming language) , history , field programmable gate array , computer science , computer hardware , paleontology , memoir , art history
Tropical cyclones (TCs) represent a significant threat to people and places of the southwest Pacific (0°–35°S, 135°E–120°W). TC modeling is hindered by exceptionally short TC records (typically from 1970/1982 to present) because the brevity of TC data does not allow us to appropriately quantify TC‐related risk and/or identify long‐term trends/variability. Therefore, in this paper, we derive a series of statistical hindcast models to reconstruct TC counts in the western (135°E–160°E) and eastern southwest Pacific (160°E–120°W) regions to 1855. Reanalysis data representing Indo‐Pacific sea surface temperature variability and genesis parameters required for tropical cyclogenesis were identified and trained on post‐1970 TC observations and applied to the pre‐1970 period. By hindcasting up to an additional 115 TC seasons, using four separate hindcasts, this study offers a unique perspective on historical TC variability and reiterates the need to place the recent downward trend in TC counts within the context of long‐term variability.