Tropical cyclones in ERA-40: A detection and tracking method

Kleppek, S.; Muccione, V.; Raible, C. C.; Bresch, D. N.; Koellner-Heck, P.; Stocker, T. F. (2008). Tropical cyclones in ERA-40: A detection and tracking method. Geophysical Research Letters, 35(10) Washington, D.C.: American Geophysical Union 10.1029/2008GL033880

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A tracking method for tropical cyclones (TCs) is presented and their characteristics for data sets with a lower horizontal resolution, e.g., the ERA-40 Reanalysis data set from 1958 to 2001 are explored. The tracking method uses sea level pressure, relative vorticity and wind speed at 850 hPa, and vertical wind shear. The method, assessed in the Atlantic basin, identifies a realistic number of TCs. However, the ERA-40 TCs compared with best track data from the U.S. National Hurricane Center are too weak to reach hurricane character, i.e., the tracked TCs do not show hurricanes of category three to five. Another caveat is that the life cycle of central pressure values is often not realistically reproduced by ERA-40 TCs. To correct the life cycle of the central pressure, a two-step statistical downscaling approach is applied to the ERA-40 TCs which strongly improves the finding of major hurricanes.

Item Type:

Journal Article (Original Article)

Division/Institute:

08 Faculty of Science > Physics Institute > Climate and Environmental Physics
10 Strategic Research Centers > Oeschger Centre for Climate Change Research (OCCR)
08 Faculty of Science > Physics Institute

UniBE Contributor:

Kleppek, Sabine, Raible, Christoph, Stocker, Thomas

ISSN:

0094-8276

Publisher:

American Geophysical Union

Language:

English

Submitter:

Factscience Import

Date Deposited:

04 Oct 2013 15:23

Last Modified:

05 Dec 2022 14:25

Publisher DOI:

10.1029/2008GL033880

Web of Science ID:

000256137800003

BORIS DOI:

10.48350/37320

URI:

https://boris.unibe.ch/id/eprint/37320 (FactScience: 207501)

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