Search Menu
DOE PAGES title logo U.S. Department of Energy
Office of Scientific and Technical Information
Search Scholarly Publications

Title: The Response of Atlantic Tropical Cyclones to Suppression of African Easterly Waves

Journal Article · · Geophysical Research Letters
ORCiD logo [1];  [2]; ORCiD logo [3]
  1. Lawrence Berkeley National Lab. (LBNL), Berkeley, CA (United States)
  2. Texas A & M Univ., College Station, TX (United States)
  3. Texas A & M Univ., College Station, TX (United States); Ocean Univ. of China, Qingdao (China)
+ Show Author Affiliations

©2017. American Geophysical Union. All Rights Reserved. Atlantic tropical cyclone (TC) genesis is strongly linked with African easterly waves (AEWs) on the synoptic time scale. However, the TC-AEW relationship is unclear on interannual to climate time scales, and it is unknown whether AEWs are necessary to maintain climatological TC frequency, that is, whether TCs are limited by AEWs. We investigated the impact of AEW suppression on seasonal Atlantic TC activity using a 10-member ensemble of regional climate model simulations in which AEWs were either prescribed or removed through the lateral boundary condition. The climate model experiments produced no significant change in seasonal Atlantic TC number, indicating that AEWs are not necessary to maintain climatological basin-wide TC frequency even though TCs readily originate from these types of disturbances. This suggests that the specific type of “seedling” disturbance is unimportant for determining basin-wide seasonal Atlantic TC number and that in the absence of AEWs, TCs will generate by other mechanisms. The results imply that changes in the presence of AEWs may not be reliable predictors of seasonal variability and future change in Atlantic TC frequency.

Research Organization:
Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL), Berkeley, CA (United States). National Energy Research Scientific Computing Center (NERSC)
Sponsoring Organization:
USDOE Office of Science (SC), Biological and Environmental Research (BER); USDOE; National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration
Grant/Contract Number:
AC02-05CH11231; DE‐AC02‐05CH11231
OSTI ID:
1544342
Alternate ID(s):
OSTI ID: 1417006; OSTI ID: 1563943
Journal Information:
Geophysical Research Letters, Vol. 45, Issue 1; ISSN 0094-8276
Publisher:
American Geophysical UnionCopyright Statement
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English

References (70)

Horizontally Homogeneous Rotating Radiative–Convective Equilibria at GCM Resolution journal June 2008
Tropical Cyclogenesis due to ITCZ Breakdown: Idealized Numerical Experiments and a Case Study of the Event in July 1988 journal September 2015
Climate Assessment for 1999 journal June 2000
Projected changes in African easterly wave intensity and track in response to greenhouse forcing journal April 2014
Are Tropical Cyclones Less Effectively Formed by Easterly Waves in the Western North Pacific than in the North Atlantic? journal November 2008
An Exploratory Analysis of the Relationship between Tropical Storm Formation in the Western North Pacific and ENSO journal April 1994
Tropical Cyclogenesis Due to Breakdown of Intertropical Convergence Zone: An Idealized Numerical Experiment journal January 2012
Diagnosis and Short-Lead Time Prediction of Summer Rainfall in Tropical North Africa at Interannual and Multidecadal Timescales journal December 1998
Tropical Cyclone Intensity in Vertical Wind Shear journal August 2004
Atlantic Hurricane Season of 2005 journal March 2008
Degree of simulated suppression of Atlantic tropical cyclones modulated by flavour of El Niño journal December 2015
North Atlantic Hurricanes Contributed by African Easterly Waves North and South of the African Easterly Jet journal December 2008
Uniformly rotating global radiative-convective equilibrium in the Community Atmosphere Model, version 5: UNIFORMLY ROTATING GLOBAL RCE journal December 2015
Upper Ocean Response to a Hurricane journal February 1981
The Structure and Properties of African Wave Disturbances as Observed During Phase III of GATE journal March 1977
The Atlantic Meridional Mode and hurricane activity journal January 2007
Easterly Waves over Africa. Part I: The Seasonal Cycle and Contrasts between Wet and Dry Years journal February 2002
Generation of African Easterly Wave Disturbances: Relationship to the African Easterly Jet journal May 2005
Objective Detection of Tropical Cyclones in High-Resolution Analyses journal August 1997
Cluster Analysis of Downscaled and Explicitly Simulated North Atlantic Tropical Cyclone Tracks journal February 2015
The ability of general circulation models to simulate tropical cyclones and their precursors over the North Atlantic main development region journal January 2012
The Maximum Intensity of Hurricanes journal April 1988
Effects of Vertical Wind Shear on the Intensity and Structure of Numerically Simulated Hurricanes journal September 2001
Genesis of Tropical Storm Eugene (2005) from Merging Vortices Associated with ITCZ Breakdowns. Part I: Observational and Modeling Analyses journal November 2008
Climate Modulation of North Atlantic Hurricane Tracks journal June 2010
African Easterly Wave Variability and Its Relationship to Atlantic Tropical Cyclone Activity journal March 2001
Representation of African Easterly Waves in CMIP5 Models journal October 2015
Characteristics of North African Easterly Waves During the Summers of 1968 and 1969 journal September 1974
West African Storm Tracks and Their Relationship to Atlantic Tropical Cyclones journal June 2007
The impact of the AMO on the West African monsoon annual cycle: Impact of AMO on West African Monsoon journal February 2013
Parameter Study of Tropical Cyclones in Rotating Radiative–Convective Equilibrium with Column Physics and Resolution of a 25-km GCM journal March 2014
Atlantic Tropical Systems of 1969 journal April 1970
Environmental Conditions for Tropical Cyclogenesis Associated with African Easterly Waves journal January 2013
Probabilistic discrimination between large-scale environments of intensifying and decaying African Easterly Waves journal June 2010
Note on ITCZ Wave Disturbances and Formation of Tropical Storm Anna journal October 1972
Revisiting the connection between African Easterly Waves and Atlantic tropical cyclogenesis: EASTERLY WAVES AND TROPICAL CYCLONES journal January 2017
Further Case Studies of Tropical Atlantic Surface Atmospheric and Oceanic Patterns Associated with Sub-Saharan Drought journal May 1992
Three-Dimensional Structure and Dynamics of African Easterly Waves. Part III: Genesis journal November 2008
The Genesis of African Easterly Waves by Upstream Development journal November 2013
An ocean coupling potential intensity index for tropical cyclones: OCEAN COOLING POTENTIAL INTENSITY INDEX journal May 2013
Tropical cyclogenesis sensitivity to environmental parameters in radiative-convective equilibrium
  • Nolan, David S.; Rappin, Eric D.; Emanuel, Kerry A.
  • Quarterly Journal of the Royal Meteorological Society, Vol. 133, Issue 629 https://doi.org/10.1002/qj.170
journal October 2007
Some Remarks on African Disturbances and Their Progress over the Tropical Atlantic journal October 1969
Role of the Monsoon Gyre in the Interannual Variation of Tropical Cyclone Formation over the Western North Pacific journal August 2004
Hurricane Carmen: August–September 1974—Development of a Wave in the ITCZ journal September 1976
Hurricanes and Global Warming: Results from Downscaling IPCC AR4 Simulations journal March 2008
Atlantic Tropical Systems of 1990 journal August 1991
The sensitivity of African easterly waves to eastern tropical Atlantic sea-surface temperatures journal June 2011
Atlantic Hurricane Database Uncertainty and Presentation of a New Database Format journal October 2013
Tropical cyclogenesis induced by ITCZ breakdown in association with synoptic wave train over the western North Pacific: ITCZ breakdown over the WNP journal July 2013
The Impact of the El Niño–Southern Oscillation and Atlantic Meridional Mode on Seasonal Atlantic Tropical Cyclone Activity journal July 2014
The Strong Association between Western Sahelian Monsoon Rainfall and Intense Atlantic Hurricanes journal May 1992
Absolute and Convective Instability of the African Easterly Jet journal May 2015
Global view of the Origin of Tropical Disturbances and Storms journal October 1968
The Origin and Structure of Easterly Waves in the Lower Troposphere of North Africa journal January 1972
Tropical cyclogenesis in a tropical wave critical layer: easterly waves journal January 2009
An Energy-Balance Analysis of Deep Convective Self-Aggregation above Uniform SST journal December 2005
Evidence of two regimes of easterly waves over West Africa and the tropical Atlantic journal August 1998
The NCEP Climate Forecast System Reanalysis journal August 2010
A teleconnection between Atlantic sea surface temperature and eastern and central North Pacific tropical cyclones: Atlantic SST/Pacific TC Teleconnection journal January 2017
Large-scale Tropical Atlantic surface circulation patterns associated with Subsaharan weather anomalies journal January 1978
Environmental Factors Contributing to Tropical Cyclone Genesis over the Western North Pacific journal February 2013
A Climatology of Intense (or Major) Atlantic Hurricanes journal June 1993
Rotating radiative-convective equilibrium simulated by a cloud-resolving model: ROTATING RCE journal December 2013
Cyclogenesis in the Tropical Atlantic journal June 1940
Role of Radiative–Convective Feedbacks in Spontaneous Tropical Cyclogenesis in Idealized Numerical Simulations journal July 2016
Development and application of a mesoscale climate model for the tropics: Influence of sea surface temperature anomalies on the West African monsoon journal January 2002
Tropical cyclone activity downscaled from NOAA-CIRES Reanalysis, 1908–1958 journal January 2010
Large-scale Tropical Atlantic surface circulation patterns associated with Subsaharan weather anomalies journal June 1978
Variability of summer rainfall over tropical north Africa (1906–92): Observations and modelling journal April 1995
Replicating annual North Atlantic hurricane activity 1878-2012 from environmental variables: Replicating Long-Term Hurricane Activity journal June 2017

Cited By (4)

Large-scale dynamics of tropical cyclone formation associated with ITCZ breakdown journal January 2019
Future changes in Atlantic hurricanes with the rotated-stretched ARPEGE-Climat at very high resolution journal November 2019
Relative Impacts of Local and Remote Forcing on Tropical Cyclone Frequency in Numerical Model Simulations journal August 2018
Impacts of Extratropical Weather Perturbations on Tropical Cyclone Activity: Idealized Sensitivity Experiments With a Regional Atmospheric Model journal December 2019

Figures / Tables (4)

Figure 1(p. 3)figure Figure 1
Table 1(p. 4)table Table 1
Figure 2(p. 5)figure Figure 2
Figure 3(p. 6)figure Figure 3

Similar Records

Related Subjects

58 GEOSCIENCES
tropical cyclones
tropical cyclogenesis
African easterly waves
climate variability