Recent decrease in typhoon destructive potential and global warming implications.
Where this comes from
- Record sourced from PubMed, PMID 25990561.
- Also identified by DOI 10.1038/ncomms8182 and PMC identifier 4455093.
- Licence recorded as CC BY.
- The licence permits redistribution, so the abstract is shown in full and the full text is available from the publisher.
Abstract
Typhoons (tropical cyclones) severely impact the half-billion population of the Asian Pacific. Intriguingly, during the recent decade, typhoon destructive potential (Power Dissipation Index, PDI) has decreased considerably (by ∼ 35%). This decrease, paradoxically, has occurred despite the increase in typhoon intensity and ocean warming. Using the method proposed by Emanuel (in 2007), we show that the stronger negative contributions from typhoon frequency and duration, decrease to cancel the positive contribution from the increasing intensity, controlling the PDI. Examining the typhoons' environmental conditions, we find that although the ocean condition became more favourable (warming) in the recent decade, the atmospheric condition 'worsened' at the same time. The 'worsened' atmospheric condition appears to effectively overpower the 'better' ocean conditions to suppress PDI. This stronger negative contribution from reduced typhoon frequency over the increased intensity is also present under the global warming scenario, based on analysis of the simulated typhoon data from high-resolution modelling.