The climate change signal in hurricanes

In this presentation, I will discuss results from our ongoing research on detecting climate change signal in hurricane activity in the recent history. A question that is frequently asked during or after an extreme hurricane season like 2017 is whether such extreme season becomes more frequent or is simply one of the statistical flukes. Such question is hard to answer by using observational data alone as the length of high-quality hurricane record is too short. Therefore, we study this question by a combination of observations, statistical-dynamical downscaling modeling and high-resolution global dynamical modeling approaches. Simulations driven by reanalysis data will be used to estimate historical trends. Simulations driven by outputs from global climate models as well as those directly output from high-resolution global models are used to estimate the roles of radiative forcing, natural variability, and their combination. I will show the comparison of various climatological measures of TC activity from observations and model-based estimates for the current, pre-industrial, and near future periods. In addition to our work, I will also discuss other recent studies on detecting climate change signal on hurricanes.