Biases and projections of explosive cyclones in global and regional climate models
Christian Seiler,Pacific Climate Impacts Consortium
Wednesday, March 8, 2017
Snacks/Discussion begin at 15:00, Talk at 15:30
Location: Grad House, David Clode Room
Extratropical cyclones (ETCs) affect the general circulation through the transport of heat, moisture, and momentum, but also impact human activity through the generation of strong surface winds, extreme precipitation, and associated hazardous conditions. Many of the most violent winter storms undergo rapid intensification with deepening rates characteristic of “weather bombs”. Given the severe weather conditions associated with these explosive ETCs (EETCs), it is of great public interest to better understand how such events will change under a warming climate. While numerous studies have assessed the impacts of anthropogenic greenhouse gas (GHG) forcing on ETCs in general, less attention has been paid to EETCs. This presentation will show how well GCMs reproduce EETCs, and how EETCs are likely to be affected by enhanced GHG emissions. A statistical analysis will explore possible mechanisms that drive EETC biases and projections in GCMs. The second part of the presentation will assess the sensitivity these results to horizontal model resolution.