A Weibull approach for improving climate model projections of tropical cyclone wind-speed distributions
Reliable estimates of future changes in extreme weather phenomena, such as tropical cyclone maximum wind speeds, are critical for climate change impact assessments and the development of appropriate adaptation strategies. However, global and regional climate model outputs are often too coarse for di...
Published in: | Journal of Climate |
---|---|
Other Authors: | , , , |
Format: | Article in Journal/Newspaper |
Language: | English |
Published: |
American Meteorological Society
2014
|
Subjects: | |
Online Access: | http://nldr.library.ucar.edu/repository/collections/OSGC-000-000-020-845 https://doi.org/10.1175/JCLI-D-14-00121.1 |
id |
ftncar:oai:drupal-site.org:articles_14247 |
---|---|
record_format |
openpolar |
spelling |
ftncar:oai:drupal-site.org:articles_14247 2023-09-05T13:21:38+02:00 A Weibull approach for improving climate model projections of tropical cyclone wind-speed distributions Tye, Mari (author) Stephenson, David (author) Holland, Gregory (author) Katz, Richard (author) 2014-08-15 application/pdf http://nldr.library.ucar.edu/repository/collections/OSGC-000-000-020-845 https://doi.org/10.1175/JCLI-D-14-00121.1 en eng American Meteorological Society Journal of Climate http://nldr.library.ucar.edu/repository/collections/OSGC-000-000-020-845 doi:10.1175/JCLI-D-14-00121.1 ark:/85065/d76h4jc7 Copyright 2014 American Meteorological Society (AMS). Permission to use figures, tables, and brief excerpts from this work in scientific and educational works is hereby granted provided that the source is acknowledged. Any use of material in this work that is determined to be "fair use" under Section 107 or that satisfies the conditions specified in Section 108 of the U.S. Copyright Law (17 USC, as revised by P.L. 94-553) does not require the Society's permission. Republication, systematic reproduction, posting in electronic form on servers, or other uses of this material, except as exempted by the above statements, requires written permission or license from the AMS. Additional details are provided in the AMS Copyright Policies, available from the AMS at 617-227-2425 or amspubs@ametsoc.org. Permission to place a copy of this work on this server has been provided by the AMS. The AMS does not guarantee that the copy provided here is an accurate copy of the published work. Text article 2014 ftncar https://doi.org/10.1175/JCLI-D-14-00121.1 2023-08-14T18:41:22Z Reliable estimates of future changes in extreme weather phenomena, such as tropical cyclone maximum wind speeds, are critical for climate change impact assessments and the development of appropriate adaptation strategies. However, global and regional climate model outputs are often too coarse for direct use in these applications, with variables such as wind speed having truncated probability distributions compared to those of observations. This poses two problems: How can model-simulated variables best be adjusted to make them more realistic? And how can such adjustments be used to make more reliable predictions of future changes in their distribution? This study investigates North Atlantic tropical cyclone maximum wind speeds from observations (1950-2010) and regional climate model simulations (1995-2005 and 2045-55 at 12- and 36-km spatial resolutions). The wind speed distributions in these datasets are well represented by the Weibull distribution, albeit with different scale and shape parameters. A power-law transfer function is used to recalibrate the Weibull variables and obtain future projections of wind speeds. Two different strategies, bias correction and change factor, are tested by using 36-km model data to predict future 12-km model data (pseudo-observations). The strategies are also applied to the observations to obtain likely predictions of the future distributions of wind speeds. The strategies yield similar predictions of likely changes in the fraction of events within Saffir-Simpson categories—for example, an increase from 21% (1995–2005) to 27%–37% (2045–55) for category 3 or above events and an increase from 1.6% (1995-2005) to 2.8%-9.8% (2045-55) for category 5 events. AGS1048841 Article in Journal/Newspaper North Atlantic OpenSky (NCAR/UCAR - National Center for Atmospheric Research/University Corporation for Atmospheric Research) Journal of Climate 27 16 6119 6133 |
institution |
Open Polar |
collection |
OpenSky (NCAR/UCAR - National Center for Atmospheric Research/University Corporation for Atmospheric Research) |
op_collection_id |
ftncar |
language |
English |
description |
Reliable estimates of future changes in extreme weather phenomena, such as tropical cyclone maximum wind speeds, are critical for climate change impact assessments and the development of appropriate adaptation strategies. However, global and regional climate model outputs are often too coarse for direct use in these applications, with variables such as wind speed having truncated probability distributions compared to those of observations. This poses two problems: How can model-simulated variables best be adjusted to make them more realistic? And how can such adjustments be used to make more reliable predictions of future changes in their distribution? This study investigates North Atlantic tropical cyclone maximum wind speeds from observations (1950-2010) and regional climate model simulations (1995-2005 and 2045-55 at 12- and 36-km spatial resolutions). The wind speed distributions in these datasets are well represented by the Weibull distribution, albeit with different scale and shape parameters. A power-law transfer function is used to recalibrate the Weibull variables and obtain future projections of wind speeds. Two different strategies, bias correction and change factor, are tested by using 36-km model data to predict future 12-km model data (pseudo-observations). The strategies are also applied to the observations to obtain likely predictions of the future distributions of wind speeds. The strategies yield similar predictions of likely changes in the fraction of events within Saffir-Simpson categories—for example, an increase from 21% (1995–2005) to 27%–37% (2045–55) for category 3 or above events and an increase from 1.6% (1995-2005) to 2.8%-9.8% (2045-55) for category 5 events. AGS1048841 |
author2 |
Tye, Mari (author) Stephenson, David (author) Holland, Gregory (author) Katz, Richard (author) |
format |
Article in Journal/Newspaper |
title |
A Weibull approach for improving climate model projections of tropical cyclone wind-speed distributions |
spellingShingle |
A Weibull approach for improving climate model projections of tropical cyclone wind-speed distributions |
title_short |
A Weibull approach for improving climate model projections of tropical cyclone wind-speed distributions |
title_full |
A Weibull approach for improving climate model projections of tropical cyclone wind-speed distributions |
title_fullStr |
A Weibull approach for improving climate model projections of tropical cyclone wind-speed distributions |
title_full_unstemmed |
A Weibull approach for improving climate model projections of tropical cyclone wind-speed distributions |
title_sort |
weibull approach for improving climate model projections of tropical cyclone wind-speed distributions |
publisher |
American Meteorological Society |
publishDate |
2014 |
url |
http://nldr.library.ucar.edu/repository/collections/OSGC-000-000-020-845 https://doi.org/10.1175/JCLI-D-14-00121.1 |
genre |
North Atlantic |
genre_facet |
North Atlantic |
op_relation |
Journal of Climate http://nldr.library.ucar.edu/repository/collections/OSGC-000-000-020-845 doi:10.1175/JCLI-D-14-00121.1 ark:/85065/d76h4jc7 |
op_rights |
Copyright 2014 American Meteorological Society (AMS). Permission to use figures, tables, and brief excerpts from this work in scientific and educational works is hereby granted provided that the source is acknowledged. Any use of material in this work that is determined to be "fair use" under Section 107 or that satisfies the conditions specified in Section 108 of the U.S. Copyright Law (17 USC, as revised by P.L. 94-553) does not require the Society's permission. Republication, systematic reproduction, posting in electronic form on servers, or other uses of this material, except as exempted by the above statements, requires written permission or license from the AMS. Additional details are provided in the AMS Copyright Policies, available from the AMS at 617-227-2425 or amspubs@ametsoc.org. Permission to place a copy of this work on this server has been provided by the AMS. The AMS does not guarantee that the copy provided here is an accurate copy of the published work. |
op_doi |
https://doi.org/10.1175/JCLI-D-14-00121.1 |
container_title |
Journal of Climate |
container_volume |
27 |
container_issue |
16 |
container_start_page |
6119 |
op_container_end_page |
6133 |
_version_ |
1776202228403535872 |