Representation of Tropical Cyclones by the Modern-Era Retrospective Analysis for Research and Applications Version 2
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ORIGINAL ARTICLE
Representation of Tropical Cyclones by the Modern-Era Retrospective Analysis for Research and Applications Version 2 Hyerim Kim 1 & Myong-In Lee 1
&
Sungyoon Kim 2 & Young-Kwon Lim 3,4 & Siegfried D. Schubert 3,5 & Andrea M. Molod 3
Received: 9 November 2019 / Revised: 20 December 2019 / Accepted: 21 December 2019 # Korean Meteorological Society and Springer Nature B.V. 2020
Abstract This study examines the veracity of the tropical cyclone (TC) statistics estimated from the Modern-Era Retrospective Analysis for Research and Applications, version 2 (MERRA-2) global atmospheric reanalysis, focusing on the climatological-mean genesis regions, tracks and their lifetime maximum intensity, as well as the interannual and intraseasonal variations in TC activity. The results are validated against the International Best Track Archive for Climate Stewardship (IBTrACS) data for 1980–2016. MERRA-2 represents the spatial distribution of the TC genesis location and the tracks realistically over all main development regions (MDRs), but the simulated TCs are initiated at lower latitudes closer to the equator compared with the observations. Over the western North Pacific and the North Atlantic, MERRA-2 underestimates recurving TCs steered by background westerlies in the mid-latitudes and thereby exaggerates northwestward moving TCs, resulting in an overestimate of the landfall probability in East Asia and North America. Excessive development of TCs over the Bay of Bengal also tends to exaggerate the landfall probability in India. In spite of the discrepancies in the annual TC number, the seasonal variation of TC genesis is realistic in MERRA-2. MERRA-2 also captures the TC intensity relationship between the minimum pressure and the maximum surface wind speed at the mature stage, although the maximum intensity is weaker than in the observations. While MERRA-2 tends to reproduce the interannual variations of the observed TC number and the power dissipation index (PDI), the level of accuracy varies by each ocean basin. MERRA-2 describes the changes in the TC genesis region and tracks realistically according to the different phases of El Nino and the Southern Oscillation (ENSO) and the Madden-Julian Oscillation (MJO), although it is less realistic over the North Indian Ocean. Keywords Tropical Cyclones . MERRA-2 . Reanalysis
1 Introduction Responsible Editor: Soon-Il An. * Myong-In Lee [email protected] 1
Shool of Urban and Environmental Engineering, Ulsan National Institute of Science and Technology, 50 UNIST-gil, Ulsan 689-798, South Korea
2
Department of Civil, Construction and Environmental Engineering, The University of Alabama, Tuscaloosa, AL, USA
3
Global Modeling and Assimilation Office, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, MD, USA
4
Goddard Earth Sciences, Technology, and Research / I. M. Systems Group, Greenbelt, MD, USA
5
Science Systems and Applications, Inc., Lanham, MD, USA
With the continuous evolution and advancements of data assimilatio
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