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254 Publications

2022

Author Correction: A potential explanation for the global increase in tropical cyclone rapid intensification.

K. Bhatia, A. Baker, W. Yang, G. Vecchi, T. Knutson, H. Murakami, J. Kossin, K. Hodges, K. Dixon, B. Bronselaer, C. Whitlock

Journal Article

Rapid attribution analysis of the extraordinary heat wave on the Pacific coast of the US and Canada in June 2021

Journal Article

A potential explanation for the global increase in tropical cyclone rapid intensification

K. Bhatia, A. Baker, W. Yang, G. Vecchi, T.R. Knutson, H. Murakami, J. Kossin, K. Hodges, K. Dixon, B. Bronselear, C. Whitlock

Journal Article

Tropical cyclone rapid intensification events often cause destructive hurricane landfalls because they are associated with the strongest storms and forecasts with the highest errors. Multi-decade observational datasets of tropical cyclone behavior have recently enabled documentation of upward trends in tropical cyclone rapid intensification in…

Model Spread in the Tropical Cyclone Frequency and Seed Propensity Index Across Global Warming and ENSO-Like Perturbations

T.-L. Hsieh, W. Yang, G. Vecchi, M. Zhao

Journal Article

The future projection of tropical cyclone frequency is highly uncertain. Recent multi-model studies showed that the model spread in tropical cyclones is correlated with the model spread in seeds, which are defined as convective weak vortices. However, it was unclear how the model spread is related to the large-scale circulation. Here we apply a…

Correlation Between Sea-Level Rise and Aspects of Future Tropical Cyclone Activity in CMIP6 Models

J.W. Lockwood, M. Oppenheimer, N. Lin, R.E. Kopp, G. Vecchi, A. Gori

Journal Article

Future coastal flood hazard at many locations will be impacted by both tropical cyclone (TC) change and relative sea-level rise (SLR). Despite sea level and TC activity being influenced by common thermodynamic and dynamic climate variables, their future changes are generally considered independently. Here, we investigate correlations between…

Tropical Cyclone Flooding in the Carolinas

M. Liu, J.A. Smith, L. Yang, G. Vecchi

Journal Article

The climatology of tropical cyclone flooding in the Carolinas is analyzed through annual flood peak observations from 411 U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) stream gauging stations. Tropical cyclones (TCs) account for 28% of the top 10 annual flood peaks, 55% of record floods, and 91% of floods with peak magnitudes at least 5 times greater than the…

2021

Outsized Influence of Central American Orography on Global Climate

J.W. Baldwin, A. Atwood, G. Vecchi, D.S. Battisti

Journal Article

Global Climate Models (GCMs) exhibit substantial biases in their simulation of tropical climate. One particularly problematic bias exists in GCMs' simulation of the tropical rainband known as the Intertropical Convergence Zone (ITCZ). Much of the precipitation on Earth falls within the ITCZ, which plays a key role in setting Earth's temperature…

Hurricane annual cycle controlled by both seeds and genesis probability

W. Yang, T.-L. Hsieh, G. Vecchi

Journal Article

Understanding tropical cyclone (TC) climatology is a problem of profound societal significance and deep scientific interest. The annual cycle is the biggest radiatively forced signal in TC variability, presenting a key test of our understanding and modeling of TC activity. TCs over the North Atlantic (NA) basin, which are usually called hurricanes…

Enhanced hydrological cycle increases ocean heat uptake and moderates transient climate change

M. Liu, G. Vecchi, B. Soden, W. Yang, B. Zhang

Journal Article

The large-scale moistening of the atmosphere in response to increasing greenhouse gases amplifies the existing patterns of precipitation minus evaporation (P − E), which, in turn, amplifies the spatial contrast in sea surface salinity. Here, by performing a series of transient CO2 doubling experiments, we demonstrate that surface salinification…

Improved simulation of 19th-and 20th-century North Atlantic hurricane frequency after correcting historical sea surface temperatures

D. Chan, G. Vecchi, W. Yang, P. Huybers

Journal Article

Confidence in dynamical and statistical hurricane prediction is rooted in the skillful reproduction of hurricane frequency using sea surface temperature (SST) patterns, but an ensemble of high-resolution atmospheric simulation extending to the 1880s indicates model-data disagreements that exceed those expected from documented uncertainties. We…

Compensation Between Cloud Feedback and Aerosol-Cloud Interaction in CMIP6 Models

C. Wang, B.J. Soden, W. Yang, G. Vecchi

Journal Article

The most recent generation of climate models (the 6th Phase of the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project) yields estimates of effective climate sensitivity (ECS) that are much higher than past generations due to a stronger amplification from cloud feedback. If plausible, these models require substantially larger greenhouse gas reductions to meet…

Sea surface salinity response to tropical cyclones based on satellite observations

J. Sun, G. Vecchi, B. Soden

Journal Article

Multi-year records of satellite remote sensing of sea surface salinity (SSS) provide an opportunity to investigate the climatological characteristics of the SSS response to tropical cyclones (TCs). In this study, the influence of TC winds, rainfall and preexisting ocean stratification on SSS evolution is examined with multiple satellite-based and…

The role of radiative interactions in tropical cyclone development under realistic boundary conditions

B. Zhang, B.J. Soden, G. Vecchi, W. Yang

Journal Article

The impact of radiative interactions on tropical cyclone (TC) climatology is investigated using a global, TC-permitting general circulation model (GCM) with realistic boundary conditions. In this model, synoptic-scale radiative interactions are suppressed by overwriting the model-generated atmospheric radiative cooling rates with their monthly…

Tropical Cyclone Frequency

A.H. Sobel, A.A. Wing, S.J. Camargo, C.M. Patricola, G. Vecchi, C.-Y. Lee, M.K. Tippett

Journal Article

The frequency with which tropical cyclones (TCs) occur controls all other aspects of tropical cyclone risk since a storm that does not occur can do no harm. Yet this frequency is poorly understood. There is no accepted theory that explains the average number of TCs that occur each year on the Earth, nor how that number will change with global…

A Comparison of tropical cyclone projections in a high-resolution global climate model and from downscaling by statistical and statistical-deterministic methods

R. Jing, N. Lin, K. Emanuel, G. Vecchi, T.R. Knutson

Journal Article

In this study, we investigate the response of tropical cyclones (TCs) to climate change by using the Princeton environment-dependent probabilistic tropical cyclone (PepC) model and a statistical-deterministic method to downscale TCs using environmental conditions obtained from the Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory (GFDL) High-Resolution…

Changes in Atlantic major hurricane frequency since the late-19th century

G. Vecchi, C. Landsea, W. Zhang, G. Villarini, T.R. Knutson

Journal Article

Atlantic hurricanes are a major hazard to life and property, and a topic of intense scientific interest. Historical changes in observing practices limit the utility of century-scale records of Atlantic major hurricane frequency. To evaluate past changes in frequency, we have here developed a homogenization method for Atlantic hurricane and major…

Assessing the influence of climate on wintertime SARS-CoV-2 outbreaks

R.E. Baker, W. Yang, G. Vecchi, C.J.E. Metcalf, B.T. Grenfell

Journal Article

High susceptibility has limited the role of climate in the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic to date. However, understanding a possible future effect of climate, as susceptibility declines and the northern-hemisphere winter approaches, is an important open question. Here we use an epidemiological model, constrained by observations, to assess the sensitivity of…

Investigating the Causes and Impacts of Convective Aggregation in a High Resolution Atmospheric GCM

B. Zhang, B.J. Soden, G. Vecchi, W. Yang

Journal Article

A ∼50 km resolution atmospheric general circulation model (GCM) is used to investigate the impact of radiative interactions on spatial organization of convection, the model s mean state, and extreme precipitation events in the presence of realistic boundary conditions. Mechanism-denial experiments are performed in which synoptic-scale feedbacks…

Influence of Vertical Wind Shear on the Ocean Response to Tropical Cyclones Based on Satellite Observations

J. Sun, G. Vecchi, B.J. Soden

Journal Article

We here investigate the effects of tropical cyclone (TC)-induced rainfall asymmetries driven by vertical wind shear on ocean salinity and temperature response to TCs using satellite and in situ observations. On average, TCs tend to initially freshen the ocean surface due to heavy rainfall and subsequently salinity from upwelling and vertical…

2020

The impact of sea surface temperature biases on North American precipitation in a high-resolution climate model

N.C. Johnson, L. Krishnamurthy, A.T. Wittenberg, B. Xiang, G. Vecchi, S.B. Kapnick, S. Pascale

Journal Article

Positive precipitation biases over western North America have remained a pervasive problem in the current generation of coupled global climate models. These biases are substantially reduced, however, in a version of the Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory Forecast-Oriented Low Ocean Resolution (FLOR) coupled climate model with systematic sea…

Response of Extreme Rainfall for Landfalling Tropical Cyclones Undergoing Extratropical Transition to Projected Climate Change: Hurricane Irene (2011)

M. Liu, L. Yang, J.A. Smith, G. Vecchi

Journal Article

Extreme rainfall and flooding associated with landfalling tropical cyclones (TCs) have large societal impacts, both in fatalities and economic losses. This study examines the response of TC rainfall to climate change projected under future anthropogenic greenhouse emissions, focusing on Hurricane Irene, which produced severe flooding across the…

The typhoon-induced drying of the Maritime Continent

E. Scoccimarro, S. Gualdi, A. Bellucci, D. Peano, A. Cherchi, G. Vecchi, A. Navarra

Journal Article

The Maritime Continent plays a role in the global circulation pattern, due to the energy released by convective condensation over the region which influences the global atmospheric circulation. We demonstrate that tropical cyclones contribute to drying the Maritime Continent atmosphere, influencing the definition of the onset of the dry season…

Azimuthally averaged wind and thermodynamic structures of tropical cyclones in global climate models and their sensitivity to horizontal resolution

Y. Moon, D. Kim, S.J. Camargo, A.A. Wing, A.H. Sobel, H. Murakami, K.A. Reed, E. Scoccimarro, G. Vecchi, M.F. Wehner, C.M. Zarzycki, M. Zhao

Journal Article

Characteristics of tropical cyclones (TCs) in global climate models (GCMs) are known to be influenced by details of the model configurations, including horizontal resolution and parameterization schemes. Understanding model-to-model differences in TC characteristics is a prerequisite for reducing uncertainty in future TC activity projections by…

Characteristics of model tropical cyclone climatology and the large-scale environment

S.J. Camargo, C.F. Giulivi, A.H. Sobel, A.A. Wing, D. Kim, Y. Moon, J.D.O. Strong, A.D. Del Genio, M. Kelley, H. Murakami, K.A. Reed, E. Scoccimarro, G. Vecchi, M.F. Wehner, C. Zarzycki, M. Zhao

Journal Article

Here we explore the relationship between the global climatological characteristics of tropical cyclones (TCs) in climate models and the modeled large-scale environment across a large number of models. We consider the climatology of TCs in 30 climatemodels with awide range of horizontal resolutions. We examine if there is a systematic relationship…

The impact of COVID-19 nonpharmaceutical interventions on the future dynamics of endemic infections

R.E. Baker, S.W. Park, W. Yang, G. Vecchi, Jessica Metcalf, B.T. Grenfell

Journal Article

Nonpharmaceutical interventions (NPIs) have been employed to reduce the transmission of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), yet these measures are already having similar effects on other directly transmitted, endemic diseases. Disruptions to the seasonal transmission patterns of these diseases may have consequences for…

Large-scale control on the frequency of tropical cyclones and seeds: a consistent relationship across a hierarchy of global atmospheric models

T.-L. Hsieh, G. Vecchi, W. Yang, I.M. Held, S.T. Garner

Journal Article

A diagnostic framework is developed to explain the response of tropical cyclones (TCs) to climate in high-resolution global atmospheric models having different complexity of boundary conditions. The framework uses vortex dynamics to identify the large-scale control on the evolution of TC precursors—first non-rotating convective clusters and then…

Attribution of the impacts of the 2008 flooding in Cedar Rapids (Iowa) to anthropogenic forcing

G. Villarini, W. Zhang, F. Quintero, W.F. Krajewski, G. Vecchi

Journal Article

The City of Cedar Rapids was significantly affected by the June 2008 flood. However, little is known about the role anthropogenic warming during this event, not only in terms of hydrologic response but also of impacts. Here we use a continuous distributed hydrologic model forced with precipitation with and without external forcing and show that…

Estuarine Forecasts at Daily Weather to Subseasonal Time Scales

A.C. Ross, C.A. Stock, K. Dixon, M.A.M. Friedrichs, R.R. Hood, M. Li, K. Pegion, V. Saba, G. Vecchi

Journal Article

Most present forecast systems for estuaries predict conditions for only a few days into the future. However, there are many reasons to expect that skillful estuarine forecasts are possible for longer time periods, including increasingly skillful extended atmospheric forecasts, the potential for lasting impacts of atmospheric forcing on estuarine…

Impact of volcanic aerosol hemispheric symmetry on Sahel rainfall

T.W.P. Jacobson, W. Yang, G. Vecchi, L.W. Horowitz

Journal Article

The semi-arid African Sahel region is highly sensitive to changes in monsoon precipitation, as much of the region’s workforce is employed in the agricultural industry (Hamro-Drotz and Programme 2011). Thus, studying the response of rainfall and aridity in this region to radiative perturbations is a matter of pressing humanitarian relevance. In…

The East Asian Subtropical Jet Stream and Atlantic Tropical Cyclones

W. Zhang, G. Villarini, G. Vecchi

Journal Article

Atlantic tropical cyclones (TCs) can cause significant societal and economic impacts, as 2019 s Dorian serves to remind us of these storms destructiveness. Decades of effort to understand and predict Atlantic TC activity have improved seasonal forecast skill, but large uncertainties still remain, in part due to an incomplete understanding of the…

Susceptible supply limits the role of climate in the early SARS-CoV-2 pandemic

R.E. Baker, W. Yang, G. Vecchi, C.J.E. Metcalf, B.T. Grenfell

Journal Article

Preliminary evidence suggests that climate may modulate the transmission of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). Yet it remains unclear whether seasonal and geographic variations in climate can substantially alter the pandemic trajectory, given that high susceptibility is a core driver. Here, we use a climate-dependent…

Climatological, virological and sociological drivers of current and projected dengue fever outbreak dynamics in Sri Lanka

C.E. Wagner, M. Hooshyar, R.E. Baker, W. Yang, N. Arinaminpathy, G. Vecchi, C.J.E. Metcalf, A. Porporato, B.T. Grenfell

Journal Article

The largest ever Sri Lankan dengue outbreak of 2017 provides an opportunity for investigating the relative contributions of climatological, epidemiological and sociological drivers on the epidemic patterns of this clinically important vector-borne disease. To do so, we develop a climatologically driven disease transmission framework for dengue…

Large-scale environmental controls on the seasonal statistics of rapidly intensifying North Atlantic tropical cyclones

C.H.J. Ng, G. Vecchi

Journal Article

This study is concerned with the connections between the large-scale environment and the seasonal occurrence of rapid intensification (RI) of North Atlantic tropical cyclones. Physically-motivated statistical analysis using observations and reanalysis products suggests that for tropical cyclones over the open tropical North Atlantic, the…

Application of the Cyclone Phase Space to Extratropical Transition in a Global Climate Model

M. Bieli, A.H. Sobel, S.J. Camargo, H. Murakami, G. Vecchi

Journal Article

The authors analyze the global statistics of tropical cyclones undergoing extratropical transition (ET) in the Forecast-oriented Low Ocean Resolution version of CM2.5 with Flux Adjustment (FLOR-FA). The cyclone phase space (CPS) is used to diagnose ET. A simulation of the recent historical climate is analyzed and compared with data from the…

2019

Cold waves are getting milder in the northern midlatitudes

G.J. Van Oldenborgh, E. Mitchell-Larson, G. Vecchi, H. De Vries, R. Vautard, F. Otto

Journal Article

The strong two-day cold wave in the midwestern United States in January 2019 again ignited the discussion as to whether cold waves are getting more severe or not as a result of Arctic amplification due to climate change. Assessing the evolution of cold waves in the northern hemisphere midlatitudes in the observations has been difficult because the…

The direct and ocean-mediated influence of Asian orography on tropical precipitation and cyclones

J.W. Baldwin, G. Vecchi, S. Bordoni

Journal Article

Prior global climate model (GCM) experiments have shown that the Tibetan Plateau and related orography play a significant role in enhancing the Indian Monsoon, particularly during its onset, and the East Asian monsoon. However, these experiments have been largely performed with atmosphere-only, lower-resolution GCMs that neglect the influence of…

Rainfall from tropical cyclones: high-resolution simulations and seasonal forecasts

W. Zhang, G. Villarini, G. Vecchi, H. Murakami

Journal Article

This study examines the performance of the Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory Forecast-Oriented Low Ocean Resolution version of CM2.5 (FLOR; 50-km mesh) and high-resolution FLOR (HiFLOR; 25-km mesh) in reproducing the climatology and interannual variability in rainfall associated with tropical cyclones (TCs) in both sea surface temperature …

Temporally Compound Heat Wave Events and Global Warming: An Emerging Hazard

J.W. Baldwin, J.B. Dessy, G. Vecchi, M. Oppenheimer

Journal Article

The temporal structure of heat waves having substantial human impact varies widely, with many featuring a compound structure of hot days interspersed with cooler breaks. In contrast, many heat wave definitions employed by meteorologists include a continuous threshold-exceedance duration criterion. This study examines the hazard of these diverse…

Halving warming with idealized solar geoengineering moderates key climate hazards

P. Irvine, K. Emanuel, J. He, L.W. Horowitz, G. Vecchi, D. Keith

Journal Article

Solar geoengineering (SG) has the potential to restore average surface temperatures by increasing planetary albedo 1–4 , but this could reduce precipitation 5–7 . Thus, although SG might reduce globally aggregated risks, it may increase climate risks for some regions 8–10 . Here, using the high-resolution forecast-oriented low ocean resolution …

Regional Arctic sea–ice prediction: potential versus operational seasonal forecast skill

M. Bushuk, R. Msadek, M. Winton, G. Vecchi, X. Yang, A. Rosati, R. Gudgel

Journal Article

Seasonal predictions of Arctic sea ice on regional spatial scales are a pressing need for a broad group of stakeholders, however, most assessments of predictability and forecast skill to date have focused on pan-Arctic sea–ice extent (SIE). In this work, we present the first direct comparison of perfect model (PM) and operational (OP) seasonal…

Causes of large projected increases in hurricane precipitation rates with global warming

M. Liu, G. Vecchi, J.A. Smith, T.R. Knutson

Journal Article

Recent climate modeling studies point to an increase in tropical cyclone rainfall rates in response to climate warming. These studies indicate that the percentage increase in tropical cyclone rainfall rates often outpaces the increase in saturation specific humidity expected from the Clausius-Clapeyron relation ( 7% °C−1). We explore the change in…

Potential Increase in Hazard From Mediterranean Hurricane Activity With Global Warming

J.J. González-Alemán, S. Pascale, J. Gutierrez-Fernandez, H. Murakami, M.A. Gaertner, G. Vecchi

Journal Article

Mediterranean hurricanes (Medicanes) are intense cyclones that acquire tropical characteristics, associated with extreme winds and rainfall, thus posing a serious natural hazard to populated areas along Mediterranean coasts. Understanding how Medicanes will change with global warming remains, however, a challenge, because coarse resolution and/or…

Epidemic dynamics of respiratory syncytial virus in current and future climates

R.E. Baker, A.S. Mahmud, C.E. Wagner, W. Yang, V.E. Pitzer, C. Viboud, G. Vecchi, C.J.E. Metcalf, B.T. Grenfell

Journal Article

A key question for infectious disease dynamics is the impact of the climate on future burden. Here, we evaluate the climate drivers of respiratory syncytial virus (RSV), an important determinant of disease in young children. We combine a dataset of county-level observations from the US with state-level observations from Mexico, spanning much of…

Assessment of summer rainfall forecast skill in the Intra-Americas in GFDL high and low-resolution models

L. Krishnamurthy, Á.G. Muñoz, G. Vecchi, R. Msadek, A.T. Wittenberg, B. Stern, R. Gudgel, F. Zeng

Journal Article

The Caribbean low-level jet (CLLJ) is an important component of the atmospheric circulation over the Intra-Americas Sea (IAS) which impacts the weather and climate both locally and remotely. It influences the rainfall variability in the Caribbean, Central America, northern South America, the tropical Pacific and the continental Unites States…

An asymmetric rainfall response to ENSO in East Asia

C.H.J. Ng, G. Vecchi, Á.G. Muñoz, H. Murakami

Journal Article

This study explores the impact of El Niño and La Niña events on precipitation and circulation in East Asia. The results are based on statistical analysis of various observational datasets and Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory’s (GFDL’s) global climate model experiments. Multiple observational datasets and certain models show that in the…

Author Correction: Recent increases in tropical cyclone intensification rates (Nature Communications, (2019), 10, 1, (635), 10.1038/s41467-019-08471-z)

K. Bhatia, G. Vecchi, T.R. Knutson, H. Murakami, J. Kossin, K. Dixon, C.E. Whitlock

Journal Article

The original version of this Article contained an error in the second sentence of the first paragraph of the ‘Quantile mapping’ section of the Methods, which incorrectly read ‘We primarily focus on results produced using an additive version of QDM26 by making use of R programming language code contained in the CRAN MBC package version 0.10–438.’…

Tropical rainfall predictions from multiple seasonal forecast systems

Journal Article

We quantify seasonal prediction skill of tropical winter rainfall in 14 climate forecast systems. High levels of seasonal prediction skill exist for year-to-year rainfall variability in all tropical ocean basins. The tropical East Pacific is the most skilful region, with very high correlation scores, and the tropical West Pacific is also highly…

Recent increases in tropical cyclone intensification rates

K. Bhatia, G. Vecchi, T.R. Knutson, H. Murakami, J. Kossin, K. Dixon, C.E. Whitlock

Journal Article

Tropical cyclones that rapidly intensify are typically associated with the highest forecast errors and cause a disproportionate amount of human and financial losses. Therefore, it is crucial to understand if, and why, there are observed upward trends in tropical cyclone intensification rates. Here, we utilize two observational datasets to…

Impacts of the Pacific meridional mode on rainfall over the maritime continent and australia: potential for seasonal predictions

W. Zhang, G. Villarini, G. Vecchi

Journal Article

This study assesses whether, the extent to which and why the Pacific Meridional Mode (PMM) modulates rainfall in Australia and the Maritime Continent. We find a statistically significant time-lagged association between March-to-May (MAM) PMM and September-to-November (SON) rainfall in the Maritime Continent and Australia. The association is…

A dynamical statistical framework for seasonal streamflow forecasting in an agricultural watershed

L.J. Slater, G. Villarini, A.A. Bradley, G. Vecchi

Journal Article

The state of Iowa in the US Midwest is regularly affected by major floods and has seen a notable increase in agricultural land cover over the twentieth century. We present a novel statistical-dynamical approach for probabilistic seasonal streamflow forecasting using land cover and General Circulation Model (GCM) precipitation forecasts. Low to…