Global high-resolution coupled modeling: response of tropical cyclones to a changing climate

Global climate models at increasingly refined resolutions are being run across the world, and provide unique tools to understand the sensitivity of tropical cyclones to climatic variations and changes, as well as the roles of tropical cyclones in the climate system. A new family of high-resolution coupled ocean-atmosphere-land-ice models is used to explore the response of tropical cyclones, both globally and regionally, to increasing greenhouse gases and to internal climate variations. The response of the total number and the total power dissipation index of tropical cyclones to increasing greenhouse gases can differ substantially between models of two atmospheric resolutions, 50km and 25km. Some thoughts on the reasons behind those differences will be offered. Systematic errors in simulating the large-scale climate are a key limitation in the models' abilities to simulate tropical cyclones and their response to variations of the climate system.