title: Enhanced intensity of global tropical cyclones during the mid-Pliocene warm period.
abstract: Given the threats that tropical cyclones (TC) pose to people and infrastructure, there is significant interest in how the climatology of these storms may change with climate. The global historical record has been extensively examined, but it is short and plagued with recurring questions about its homogeneity, limiting its effectiveness at assessing how TCs vary with climate. Past warm intervals provide an opportunity to quantify TC behavior in a warmer-than-present world. Here, we use a TC-resolving (∼25 km) global atmospheric model to investigate TC activity during the mid-Pliocene warm period (3.264-3.025 Ma) that shares similarities with projections of future climate. Two experiments, one driven by the reconstructed sea surface temperatures (SSTs) and the other by the SSTs from an ensemble of mid-Pliocene simulations, consistently predict enhanced global-average peak TC intensity during the mid-Pliocene coupled with longer duration, increased power dissipation, and a poleward migration of the location of peak intensity. The simulations are similar to global TC changes observed during recent global warming, as well as those of many future projections, providing a window into the potential TC activity that may be expected in a warmer world. Changes to power dissipation and TC frequency, especially in the Pacific, are sensitive to the different SST patterns, which could affect the viability of the role of TCs as a factor for maintaining a reduced zonal SST gradient during the Pliocene, as recently hypothesized.
authors: Nansen-Zhu International Research Centre, Institute of Atmospheric Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100029, China; yanqing@mail.iap.ac.cn.|Key Laboratory of Meteorological Disaster/Collaborative Innovation Center on Forecast and Evaluation of Meteorological Disasters, Nanjing University of Information Science and Technology, Nanjing 210044, China.
authors: Qing
authors: Q
authors: Yan
authors: State Key Laboratory of Severe Weather, Chinese Academy of Meteorological Sciences, Beijing 100081, China.
authors: Ting
authors: T
authors: Wei
authors: Department of Atmospheric Sciences, Texas A&M University, College Station, TX 77843.
authors: Robert L
authors: 0000-0002-8743-5044
authors: RL
authors: Korty
authors: Center for Weather and Climate, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration National Centers for Environmental Information, Madison, WI 53706.
authors: James P
authors: JP
authors: Kossin
authors: Department of Atmospheric Science, School of Environmental Studies, China University of Geosciences, Wuhan 430074, China.|Uni Research Climate, Bjerknes Center for Climate Research, 5007 Bergen, Norway.
authors: Zhongshi
authors: Z
authors: Zhang
authors: Key Laboratory of Meteorological Disaster/Collaborative Innovation Center on Forecast and Evaluation of Meteorological Disasters, Nanjing University of Information Science and Technology, Nanjing 210044, China.
authors: Huijun
authors: H
authors: Wang
keywords: TC-resolving climate modeling; mid-Pliocene; tropical cyclone