and the western Caribbean. Thus, there was no net change in overall developments in the southeastern region (Figure 1d). A separate study, under preparation by me and collaborators, will ascribe the western Caribbean decrease and the majority of the eastward spread to circulation changes associated...
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| Format: | Text |
| Language: | English |
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2007
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| Online Access: | http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/summary?doi=10.1.1.408.2462 http://www.meteo.psu.edu/holocene/public_html/shared/articles/MEHWEos07.pdf |
| Summary: | and the western Caribbean. Thus, there was no net change in overall developments in the southeastern region (Figure 1d). A separate study, under preparation by me and collaborators, will ascribe the western Caribbean decrease and the majority of the eastward spread to circulation changes associated with the expansion of the North Atlantic warm pool. It is logical that part of the eastward spread in Figure 1c arose from weaker developing systems in the far eastern equatorial North Atlantic not being well analyzed in early years. However, the large reduction in Lesser Antilles developments (Figure 1c) indicates that most of these early-year systems simply were picked up later in their lifetimes. This is supported by the observation that the genesis intensity over the Lesser Antilles was substantially higher at approximately 20 meters per second prior to 1955 compared with approximately 10 meters per second after 1956. Thus, missing early stages of far eastern storms did not have a great impact on observed numbers of tropical cyclones, as shown in Figure 1b. To conclude, the decrease in landfall ratio leading up to the satellite era was part of a long-period cycle in which late nineteenth century values were similar to those of today. This decrease arose largely from a similar decrease of tropical cyclone developments in the well-observed western Caribbean and southern Gulf of Mexico regions, and it cannot be ascribed to unobserved eastern region tropical cyclones. It thus appears to be a real feature and not an analysis artifact. This finding also is supported by other studies, such as that of Elsner [2003], which suggest that there are large-scale shifts in tropical cyclone tracks and development regions. Landfall ratios cannot be assumed to be constant in time and cannot be used to infer missing data in earlier years, or to adjust the historical time series as suggested by Solow and Moore [2000] and Landsea [2007]. These results support the independent analyses by Neumann et al. [1999] and Chang and Guo [2007], ... |
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