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Hurricanes and Global Warming- Dr. Kerry Emanuel


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Dr. Kerry Emanuel explains how Global Warming increased the power of hurricanes. Hurricane Katrina is discussed, with the conclusion that Katrina probably would not have had the power to break the New Orleans levees in a pre-Global Warming world. April 2009 webinar presented by the Southern Allicance for Clean Energy ( and the Gulf Restoration Network ( SlideCast by John Atkeison of the Alliance for Affordable Energy. There is a very small amount of phone noise.

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Hurricanes and Global Warming- Dr. Kerry Emanuel

  1. 1. Hurricanes and Global Warming Kerry Emanuel Massachusetts Institute of Technology
  2. 2. Issues <ul><li>Effect of climate change on tropical cyclone activity </li></ul><ul><li>Role of tropical cyclones in the climate system </li></ul>
  3. 3. Approaches <ul><li>The historical record </li></ul><ul><li>Physics </li></ul><ul><li>Models </li></ul>
  4. 4. The Historical Record
  5. 5. Global TC Frequency, 1970-2006 Data Sources: NOAA/TPC and NAVY/JTWC
  6. 6. Better Intensity Metric: The Power Dissipation Index A measure of the total frictional dissipation of kinetic energy in the hurricane boundary layer over the lifetime of the storm
  7. 7. Atlantic Storm Maximum Power Dissipation (Smoothed with a 1-3-4-3-1 filter) Power Dissipation Index (PDI) Years included: 1870-2006 Data Source: NOAA/TPC
  8. 8. Atlantic Sea Surface Temperatures and Storm Max Power Dissipation (Smoothed with a 1-3-4-3-1 filter) Scaled Temperature Power Dissipation Index (PDI) Years included: 1870-2006 Data Sources: NOAA/TPC, UKMO/HADSST1
  9. 9. 10-year Running Average of Aug-Oct NH Surface T and MDR SST
  10. 11. Tropical Atlantic SST(blue), Global Mean Surface Temperature (red), Aerosol Forcing (aqua) Mann, M. E., and K. A. Emanuel, 2006. Atlantic hurricane trends linked to climate change. EOS, 87, 233-244. Global mean surface temperature Tropical Atlantic sea surface temperature Sulfate aerosol radiative forcing
  11. 12. Best Fit Linear Combination of Global Warming and Aerosol Forcing (red) versus Tropical Atlantic SST (blue) Mann, M. E., and K. A. Emanuel, 2006. Atlantic hurricane trends linked to climate change. EOS, 87, 233-244. Tropical Atlantic sea surface temperature Global Surface T + Aerosol Forcing
  12. 13. Physics
  13. 14. Energy Production: The Hurricane as a Carnot Heat Engine
  14. 15. Annual Maximum Potential Intensity (m/s)
  15. 16. Observed Tropical Atlantic Potential Intensity Data Sources: NCAR/NCEP re-analysis with pre-1979 bias correction, UKMO/HADSST1 Emanuel, K., J. Climate , 2007
  16. 17. Effect of Increased Potential Intensity on Hurricane Katrina
  17. 18. Projecting into the Future: Downscaling from Global Climate Models
  18. 19. Today’s global climate models are far too coarse to simulate tropical cyclones
  19. 20. Our Approach <ul><li>Step 1 : Seed each ocean basin with a very large number of weak, randomly located cyclones </li></ul><ul><li>Step 2 : Cyclones are assumed to move with the large scale atmospheric flow in which they are embedded </li></ul><ul><li>Step 3 : Run a coupled, ocean-atmosphere computer model for each cyclone, and note how many achieve at least tropical storm strength </li></ul><ul><li>Step 4: Using the small fraction of surviving events, determine storm statistics. </li></ul>
  20. 21. 200 Synthetic U.S. Landfalling tracks (color coded by Saffir-Simpson Scale)
  21. 22. Calibration <ul><li>Absolute genesis frequency calibrated to North Atlantic during the period 1980-2005 </li></ul>
  22. 23. Genesis rates Atlantic Eastern North Pacific Western North Pacific North Indian Ocean Southern Hemisphere Calibrated to Atlantic
  23. 24. Seasonal Cycles Atlantic
  24. 25. Cumulative Distribution of Storm Lifetime Peak Wind Speed, with Sample of 2946 Synthetic Tracks
  25. 26. Captures effects of regional climate phenomena (e.g. ENSO, AMM)
  26. 27. Global Percentage of Cat 4 & Cat 5 Storms
  27. 28. Now Use Daily Output from IPCC Models to Derive Wind Statistics, Thermodynamic State Needed by Synthetic Track Technique
  28. 29. 1. Last 20 years of 20 th century simulations 2. Years 2180-2200 of IPCC Scenario A1b (CO 2 stabilized at 720 ppm) Compare two simulations each from 7 IPCC models:
  29. 30. Basin-Wide Percentage Change in Power Dissipation
  30. 31. 7 Model Consensus Change in Storm Frequency
  31. 32. U.S. Coastal Damage Potential
  32. 34. Summary: <ul><li>Tropical cyclones are sensitive to the climate state, as revealed by historical (and geological) data </li></ul><ul><li>Observations together with detailed modeling suggest that TC power dissipation increases by ~65% for a 10% increase in potential intensity </li></ul>
  33. 35. <ul><li>New technique for downscaling climate models shows promise for predicting response of global tropical cyclone activity to climate change </li></ul><ul><li>Climate models may have systematic errors that compromise estimates of tropical cyclone response to global warming </li></ul>