Climate Variability of Tropical Cyclones: Past, Present and Future

Christopher W. Landsea
Climate variability of tropical cyclones: Past, Present and Future. Storms, 2000 edited by R. A. Pielke, Sr. and R. A Pielke, Jr,
Routledge, New York, 220-241
I. Introduction
Worldwide, tropical cyclones are the deadliest and costliest natural disasters, as the
approximate 300,000 death toll in the infamous Bangladesh Cyclone of 1970 and the $26.5
billion (U.S.) in damages due to the 1992 Hurricane Andrew in the Southeast United States
can attest (Holland 1993, Hebert et al. 1997). Pielke and Pielke (1997) show that U.S.
hurricane damages - which exceed those due to earthquakes by a factor of four - accounted
for 40% of all insured property losses for 1984 to 1993. Understanding how tropical cyclone
activity has varied in the past and will vary in the future is a topic of great interest to
meteorologists, policymakers and the general public. Some have expressed concern about the
possibility that anthropogenic climate change due to increases in "greenhouse" gases may
alter the frequency, intensity and areal occurrence of tropical cyclones. A review of the
interannual variations of tropical cyclones, their causes and seasonal predictability has been
covered by Landsea (1999). This chapter, as documented from instrumental records and the
emerging field of paleotempestology, will focus instead on what have been the long-term
variations in global tropical cyclone activity, what may be responsible for such variability, and
what might occur in future decades through both natural fluctuations and man-made causes.
II. Definitions and environmental conditions needed for tropical cyclogenesis and
development
"Tropical cyclone" is the generic term for a non-frontal synoptic scale "warm-core" low-
pressure system that develops over tropical or sub-tropical waters with organized convection
and a well-defined cyclonic surface wind circulation. It derives its energy primarily by
evaporation of water and sensible heat flux from the sea enhanced by high winds and lowered
surface pressure. These energy sources are tapped through condensation in convective
clouds concentrated near the cyclone's center (Holland 1993). Tropical cyclones with
maximum sustained surface winds of less than 18 ms
-1
are called "tropical depressions". Once
tropical cyclones reach winds of about 18 ms
-1
they are typically called a "tropical storm" and
assigned a name. If winds reach 33 ms
-1
, they are called: a "hurricane" (the North Atlantic
Ocean, the Northeast Pacific Ocean east of the dateline, or the South Pacific Ocean east of
160

E); a "typhoon" (the Northwest Pacific Ocean west of the dateline); a "severe tropical
cyclone" (the Southwest Pacific Ocean west of 160

E or Southeast Indian Ocean east of 90

E); a "severe cyclonic storm" (the North Indian Ocean); or a "tropical cyclone" (the Southwest
Indian Ocean) (Neumann 1993). Additionally, the category of "intense (or major) hurricane"
has been utilized for the Atlantic basin for those tropical cyclones obtaining winds of at least 50
ms
-1
, which corresponds to a category 3, 4 or 5 on the Saffir-Simpson hurricane intensity scale
(Simpson 1974, Hebert et al. 1997).
Before tropical cyclogenesis and further development can occur, several necessary
environmental conditions must be met (Gray 1968, 1979):
1. Warm ocean waters (of at least 26.5

C) throughout a sufficient depth (unknown how deep,
but at least on the order of 50 m) - are necessary to fuel the tropical cyclone heat engine
1
.
2. An atmosphere in which temperatures decrease fast enough with height such that it is
potentially unstable to moist convection. It is the precipitating convection typically in the form of
thunderstorm complexes that allows the heat stored in the ocean waters to be liberated for the
tropical cyclone development.
3. A relatively moist mid-troposphere. Dry middle levels are not conducive for allowing the
continuing development of widespread thunderstorm activity.
4. A minimum distance of around 500 km from the equator. For tropical cyclogenesis to occur,
there is a requirement for sufficient amounts of the Coriolis force to provide for near gradient
wind balance to occur.
5. A pre-existing near-surface disturbance with sufficient vorticity and convergence. Tropical
cyclones cannot be generated spontaneously. To develop, they require a weakly organized
system with sizable spin and low level inflow.
6. Low magnitudes (less than about 10 ms
-1
) of vertical wind shear between the ocean's
surface and the upper troposphere. Vertical wind shear is the horizontal wind change with
height. Large values of vertical wind shear disrupt the incipient tropical cyclone and can
prevent genesis, or, if a tropical cyclone has already formed, large vertical shear can weaken
or destroy the tropical cyclone by interfering with the organization of deep convection around
the cyclone center.
These six conditions are necessary, but not sufficient, as many disturbances that appear to
have favorable conditions do not develop. Recent work (Velasco and Fritsch 1987, Chen and
Frank 1993, Emanuel 1993) has identified that large thunderstorm systems (called mesoscale
convective complexes [MCC]) often produce an inertially stable, warm core vortex in the
trailing altostratus decks of the MCC. These mesovortices have a horizontal scale of
approximately 100 to 200 km, are strongest in the mid-troposphere and have no appreciable
signature at the surface. Zehr (1992) hypothesizes that genesis of the tropical cyclones occurs
in two stages: stage one occurs when the MCC produces a mesoscale vortex and stage two
occurs when a second blow up of convection at the mesoscale vortex initiates the
intensification process of lowering central pressure and increasing swirling winds.
Variations of the above broad-scale factors on the order of days, months, years and multi-
decades determine how changes in tropical cyclone activity have occurred in the past and will
be manifested in the future.

III. Current Climate - how tropical cyclones have varied during the instrumental record

a. Databases and climatology
Understanding tropical cyclone variability on interannual to interdecadal timescales is
hampered by the relatively short period over which accurate records are available. Figure 1
presents the various observational platforms available for analyzing tropical cyclone
occurrences in the Atlantic basin. Changes in the tropical cyclone databases due to
observational platform improvements (and sometime degradations) can often be mistaken as
true variations in tropical cyclone activity. For the Atlantic basin (including the North Atlantic
Ocean, the Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean Sea), aircraft reconnaissance has helped to
provide a nearly complete record back to the mid-1940s. The Northwest Pacific basin (i.e. the
Pacific north of the equator and west of the dateline, including the South China Sea) also has
had extensive aircraft surveillance giving valid records going back to at least the late 1950s
2
,
though this aircraft reconnaissance program was discontinued in 1987. However, for the
remaining basins (the North Indian, the Southwest Indian, the Australian/Southeast Indian, the
Australian/South Pacific and the Northeast Pacific), routine aircraft reconnaissance has not
been available and reliable estimates of tropical cyclones only exist for the satellite era
beginning in the mid-1960s. Thus, with the instrumental record so limited, it is difficult to make
extensive analyses of trends and of the physical mechanisms responsible for the tropical
cyclone variability on a global basis. Because of this limitation, most studies on long-term
changes in tropical cyclone activity have focused upon the Atlantic and Northwest Pacific.
However, even with these limitations, some conclusions can be drawn about past variations in
all of the basins.
The averages and standard deviations over the last few decades for each tropical cyclone
basin are given in Table 1. For example, the Atlantic basin averages around 10 tropical
cyclones reaching tropical storm strength and, of these, about 6 reach hurricane strength,
comprising only about 12% of the global total. By far, the most active region is the Northwest
Pacific with 27 tropical storms, of which 17 becoming typhoons - over 30% of the global total.
Overall, the global average number of tropical cyclones reaching 18 m s
-1
averages 86 with a
range of (+ one standard deviation) from 78 to 94. Global hurricane-force tropical cyclones
average 47 yearly with a typical range from 41 to 54. Of particular interest are the tropical
cyclones with winds of at least 50 m s
-1
, as these intense tropical cyclones comprise a much
larger proportion of the tropical cyclone-caused fatalities and destruction. In the Atlantic, for
example, intense hurricanes account for only 21% of all U. S. landfalling tropical cyclones, yet
cause over 82% of the tropical cyclone caused damage (Pielke and Landsea 1998). Intense
hurricane-force tropical cyclones are most common in the Northwest and Northeast Pacific
basins, making up nearly two-thirds of the average of 20 around the globe.
b. Interannual variability of tropical cyclones - a review
Seasonal variations of tropical cyclone activity depend upon changes in one or more of the
parameters discussed in section II. Many studies have focused upon the variations in these
values both before and during the tropical cyclone season. While the bulk of these studies has
been centered upon the Atlantic basin, the interannual fluctuations in all of the global basins
have been analyzed to some degree. A detailed survey paper of the interannual variations of
tropical cyclones, their causes and seasonal predictability has been covered by Landsea
(1999). What follows is a brief review of the topic.
Globally, tropical cyclones are affected dramatically by the El Nio-Southern Oscillation
(ENSO). ENSO is a fluctuation on the scale of a few years in the ocean-atmospheric system
involving large changes in the Walker and Hadley Cells throughout the tropical Pacific Ocean
region (Philander 1989). The state of ENSO can be characterized, among other features, by
the SST anomalies in the eastern/central equatorial Pacific: warmings in this region are
referred to as El Nio events and coolings are La Nia events.
In some basins, El Nia events bring increases in tropical cyclone formation (e.g. the South
Pacific [Revell and Goulter 1986] and the Northwest Pacific between 160

E and the dateline
[Chan 1985]) while others see decreases (e.g. the North Atlantic [Gray 1984a], the Northwest
Pacific west of 160

E [Lander 1994], the Australian region [Nicholls 1979]). Las Nias typically
bring opposite conditions. These alterations in tropical cyclone activity are due to a variety of
ENSO effects: by modulating the intensity of the local monsoon trough, by repositioning the
location of the a monsoon trough and by altering the tropospheric vertical shear.
In addition to ENSO, three basins (the Atlantic [Gray 1984a], Southwest Indian [Jury 1993],
and Northwest Pacific [Chan 1995]) show systematic alterations of tropical cyclone frequency
by the stratospheric Quasi-Biennial Oscillation (QBO), an east-west oscillation of stratospheric
winds that encircle the globe near the equator (Wallace 1973). These relationships may be due
to alterations in the static stability and dynamics near the tropopause. Given the robustness of
these alterations in tropical cyclone activity that match the QBO phases, it appears unlikely
that the associations are purely chance correlations. More research is needed, however, to
provide a thorough explanation of these relationships.
Interannual tropical cyclone variations have also been linked to more localized, basin-specific
features such as sea level pressures, local SST, monsoon strength and rainfall, sea level
pressures and tropospheric vertical shear changes.
Sea level pressures changes in the Atlantic (Shapiro 1982; Gray 1984b) and Australian
(Nicholls 1984) basins can force alterations in tropical cyclogenesis frequency. Lower (higher)
pressures are associated with less (more) vertical wind shear, weakened (enhanced)
subsidence drying, and a stronger (weaker) intertropical convergence zone [ITCZ]/monsoon
promoting increased (decreased) tropical cyclone activity (Knaff 1997).
Sea surface temperatures in the genesis regions have both a direct thermodynamic and
dynamic effect on tropical cyclones. In general, warmer than average waters are accompanied
by decreased moist static stability, lower than average surface pressures, and reduced shear.
Cooler than average waters are usually found in conjunction with a stable troposphere, higher
pressure, and increased shear. Somewhat surprisingly, interannual SST variations have
relatively small or negligible contributions toward increasing the tropical cyclone frequency in
most basins. Only the Atlantic, Southwest Indian and Australian regions have significant
though small, positive associations in the months directly before the tropical cyclone seasons
begin (Raper 1992, Shapiro and Goldenberg 1997). In the Atlantic basin, however, Saunders
and Harris (1997) provide substantial evidence that both preceding and during the hurricane
season that SSTs in the "main development region" (i.e. between 10 and 20

N from North
Africa to Central America - Goldenberg and Shapiro 1996) contribute a large percentage of the
variance explained (over 30% during the height of the season) with the number of hurricanes
generated in that area.
One aspect recently uncovered is the association of a tropical cyclone basin with its generating
(or nearby) monsoon trough. Evans and Allen (1992) identified that variations in the Australian
monsoonal flow can be associated with changes in tropical cyclone activity such that a strong
(weak) monsoon circulation during La Nia (El Nio) events is accompanied by many (few)
tropical cyclones. Over the Atlantic basin, June through September monsoonal rainfall in
Africa's Western Sahel has shown a very close association with intense hurricane activity
(Gray 1990). Wet years in the Western Sahel (e.g. 1988 and 1989) are accompanied by
dramatic increases in the incidence of intense hurricanes, while drought years (e.g. 1990
through 1993) are accompanied by a decrease in intense hurricane activity. Variations in
tropospheric vertical shear and African easterly wave intensity have been hypothesized as the
physical mechanisms that link the two phenomena (Landsea and Gray 1992), although
Goldenberg and Shapiro (1996) have demonstrated that changes in the vertical shear probably
dominate.
Some of this work has led to real-time seasonal forecasting efforts. The Atlantic basin has
generated the most interest with predictions methods described in Gray (1984a, 1984b), Gray
(1992, 1993, 1994), Elsner and Schmertmann (1993), Hess et al. (1995) and Lehmiller et al.
(1997). Nicholls (1979, 1984, 1992) has developed forecasts for the Australian basin as well.
Currently, no other group has issued real-time forecasts for basinwide tropical cyclones based
upon peer reviewed research.

c. Interdecadal variability of tropical cyclones
Among the basins with relatively short reliable records, Nicholls (1992) identified a downward
trend in the numbers of tropical cyclones occurring in the Australian region from 105-160

E,
primarily from the mid-1980s onward. However, a portion of this trend is likely artificial as the
forecasters in the region no longer classify weak (greater than 990 hPa central pressure)
systems as "cyclones" if the systems do not possess the traditional tropical cyclone inner-core
structure, but have the band of maximum winds well-removed from the center (Fig. 2a -
Nicholls et al. 1998). These changes in methodology around the mid-1980s have been
prompted by improved access to and interpretation of digital satellite data, the installation of
coastal and off-shore radar, and an increased understanding of the differentiation of tropical
cyclones from monsoonal depressions (McBride 1987) and subtropical storms (Neumann et al.
1993). By considering only the moderate and intense (less than or equal to 990 hPa) tropical
cyclones, this artificial bias in the cyclone record can be overcome.Figure 2b shows that even
with the removal of this bias in the weak tropical cyclones that the frequency of the remaining
moderate and strong tropical cyclones has been reduced substantially over the years 1969/70-
1995/96. (The intense tropical cyclones with minimum central pressure dropping below 970
hPa has a very slight upward trend - not shown.) Nicholls et al. (1998) attribute the decrease in
moderate cyclones to the occurrence of more frequent El Nio occurrences during the 1980s
and 1990s. However, the relatively small trend in the intense tropical cyclones implies that
while ENSO modulates the total frequency of cyclones in the region, ENSO does not exert a
control on the intensity of the systems after formation.
For the remaining short record basins based upon data from the late 1960s onwards, the
Northeast Pacific has experienced a significant upward trend in tropical cyclone frequency, the
North Indian a significant downward trend, and no appreciable long-term variation was
observed in the Southwest Indian and Southwest Pacific (east of 160

E) for the total number
of tropical storm strength cyclones (from Neumann 1993). However, whether these represent
longer term ( > 30 years) or shorter term (on the scale of tens of years) variability is completely
unknown because of the lack of a long, reliable record.
For the Northwest Pacific basin, Chan and Shi (1996) found that both the frequency of
typhoons and the total number of tropical storms and typhoons have been increasing since
about 1980 (Fig. 3). This recent trend holds true whether the curvilinear fit is utilized for the
years 1972-1994 or on the whole 1959-1994 time series. However, the increase was preceded
by a nearly identical magnitude of decrease from about 1960 to 1980. It is unknown currently
what has caused these decadal-scale changes. Additionally, no analysis has been done as of
yet on the numbers of intense typhoons (winds at least 50 m s
-1
) because of an unremoved
overestimation bias in the intensity of such storms in the 1950s and 1960s (Bouchard 1990,
Black 1993).
There has been an extensive analysis of the North Atlantic basin due in part to the reliable
record for both the entire basin (back to 1944) and U. S. landfallings (back to 1899)
3
. Similar to
the problems with the Northwest Pacific data, the all-basin data also has had a bias in the
measurement of strong hurricanes: during the mid-1940s through the late 1960s, the intensity
of strong hurricanes was likely overestimated by 2.5-5 m s
-1
(Landsea 1993). This bias has
been crudely removed to provide estimates of the true occurrence of intense (or major)
hurricanes. No estimate of the true occurrence of all-basin intense hurricanes is attempted for
the era before the mid-1940s because of the lack of reliable data on the strong inner core of
the hurricanes except for very infrequent measurements conducted by unlucky ships' crews.
The U.S. landfalling hurricane records back to the turn of the century are very reliable as
opposed to open-water storms because of the use of actual central pressure measurements at
landfall (Jarrell et al. 1992).
Examination of the record for the Atlantic numbers of tropical storms (including those
designated as subtropical storms
4
1968 onward) shows substantial yearly variability, but no
significant trend (Fig. 4). In contrast, the numbers of intense hurricanes have gone through
pronounced multidecadal changes: active during the late 1940s through the mid-1960s, quiet
from the 1970s through the early 1990s, and then a shift again to busy conditions again during
the extraordinarily active years 1995 and 1996 (Fig. 5). Concurrent with these frequency
changes, there have been periods of strong mean intensity of the Atlantic tropical cyclones
(mid-1940s-1960s and 1995-1996) and weak mean intensity (1970s-early 1990s), though
there has been no significant change in the peak intensity reached by the strongest hurricane
each year (Landsea et al. 1996a).
These trends for the entire Atlantic basin are mirrored by those intense hurricanes striking the
U. S. East Coast, from the Florida peninsula through New England (Fig. 6). The quiet period of
the 1970s to the early 1990s is similar to a quiescent regime in the first two decades of this
century. A more active regime began in the mid-1920s and continued into the 1960s, with a
peak in landfalling intense hurricanes from the 1940s through the mid-1960s. During two
particularly busy periods, the Florida peninsula and the Carolinas to New England each
experienced seven intense hurricane landfalls in seven years (1944-1950 and 1954-1960,
respectively). Other regions within the Atlantic basin - such as the Caribbean Sea and
surrounding land masses - also have experienced these multidecadal changes with even
greater amplitude (Fig. 7). In contrast, a subset of the Atlantic basin consisting of the U. S. Gulf
Coast from Texas to the Florida panhandle (Fig. 8) has observed much weaker multidecadal
variability in intense hurricane strikes. Going back even farther into the historical records,
Fernndez-Partags and Diaz (1996) estimate that the overall Atlantic tropical storm and
hurricane activity for the years 1851-1890 was 12% lower than the corresponding forty year
period of 1951-1990, though little can be said regarding the intense hurricanes.
Finally, hurricane-caused damage in the United States - when properly normalized - can also
provide an independent indication of multiyear changes in tropical cyclone activity. Pielke and
Landsea (1998) standardized the amount of U. S. destruction from tropical cyclones by taking
into account inflation, coastal county population changes and trends in personal property
amounts. Figure 9 shows the time series of normalized damage amounts when these three
factors are taken into account. Note the extreme destruction in 1926 (due to the near worst
case scenario of a large Category 4 hurricane striking first the Miami-Ft. Lauderdale region in
Florida, then the Florida panhandle and Alabama as a Category 3 hurricane), lowered values
of damage in the early and mid-1930s followed by $3-7 billion damage per year for nearly
every five year period from the late 1930s until the late 1960s. During the 1970s and 1980s,
the normalized damage in the United States was substantially smaller ($1-3 billion per year)
than in earlier decades. During the first five years of the 1990s, damage again returned to
higher levels due primarily to the destructiveness of Hurricane Andrew in 1992.
Gray (1990) and Gray et al. (1997) have attributed these multidecadal variations in intense
hurricane activity to changes in the Atlantic SST structure. Warmer (cooler) than average
conditions in the Atlantic north of the equator coupled with cooler (warmer) than average SSTs
in the South Atlantic favor increased (decreased) intense hurricane activity. Such a dipole
structure of the Atlantic SSTs also forces drought and wet periods in the North Africa's
Western Sahel (Fig. 10, Folland et al. 1986), which at least partially explains why there is a
strong concurrent link between the year-to-year Sahel rainfall variations and intense Atlantic
hurricanes (Reed 1988, Gray 1990, Landsea and Gray 1992, Landsea et al. 1992). The SST
dipole pattern appears to alter the overlaying tropospheric circulation such that warm
North/cold South Atlantic conditions correspond to reduced vertical wind shear in the main
development region favoring the formation and intensification of tropical cyclones. In contrast,
a cool North/warm South Atlantic acts in concert with enhanced tradewind easterlies and upper
tropospheric westerlies and thus increased tropospheric vertical wind shear (Gray et al. 1997).
Additionally, these SST variations likely play a direct role in providing changes of the heat input
available to the incipient tropical cyclone by changing the boundary layer moist enthalpy values
(Saunders and Harris 1997, Landsea et al. 1998).
The strong sensitivity of Atlantic intense hurricanes to these changes while the frequency of
named storms remains relatively constant is likely due the formation differences between the
two. The vast majority of Atlantic intense hurricanes develop from easterly waves exiting the
North African coast and moving across the tropical North Atlantic (Landsea 1993). Conditions
throughout the main development region are usually unfavorable for any tropical cyclone to
form and intensify, so typically the most that is realized is a tropical storm or a weak hurricane
(Gray et al. 1993). In active intense hurricane years such as 1995 and 1996, the vertical shear
is lowered and the SSTs are warmer along the main development region allowing a few
easterly waves to develop up to intense hurricanes (Goldenberg and Shapiro 1996, Saunders
and Harris 1997). In contrast during quiet seasons for intense hurricanes such as 1991 through
1994, tropical storms can occur in relative abundance in the subtropical latitudes (20-40

N)
forming from upper level lows, stationary frontal boundaries and easterly waves that survive
the hostile tropical latitudes.
The lack of a distinct multidecadal variation of intense hurricanes in the Gulf of Mexico is likely
due to local conditions that dominate over these basinwide SST changes (Landsea et al.
1992). Since 1967 (when satellite monitoring made it possible), only intense hurricanes that
were spawned from easterly waves have made landfall along the U.S. East Coast, while mid-
latitude systems (e.g. stationary frontal boundaries or upper-tropospheric cutoff lows) can
occasionally form an intense hurricane that makes landfall along the U.S. Gulf Coast.
Hurricane Alicia, which struck the Texas coast in 1983, is a notable example of this latter
phenomena. Additionally, vertical shear changes in the Gulf are not correlated highly with
variations of ENSO or West Sahel rainfall, unlike the main development region (Goldenberg
and Shapiro 1996).
IV. Paleotempestology - the prehistoric record of tropical cyclones
The study of pre-historic tropical cyclones, or "paleotempestology" as it could be called, may
be a way to extend back these records to provide measures of longer-term tropical cyclone
climate variability. Recent efforts to address this issue with a variety of creative methodologies
include examining: shallow coastal lake bed cores to locate storm surge sand layers (Liu and
Fearn 1993), cyclone-produced sediment deposits in shallow offshore waters (Keen and
Slingerland 1993), pollen changes recorded in coastal forest floors due to canopy blow down
(Bravo et al. 1997) and oxygen isotope variations found in coastal cavern stalactites
5

(Malmquist 1997). Liu and Fearn's (1993) work suggests that at one particular location in
coastal Alabama, U.S., there were strikes by Saffir-Simpson Category 4 or 5 hurricanes at
around 3400, 2800, 2200, 1300 and 700 years ago (Fig. 11) implying an annual probability of
occurrence of about 0.17%. Before about 3400 years ago, there is no evidence in the sediment
record for Category 4 or 5 hurricanes, meaning that either the climate did not allow for such
strong hurricanes to occur, that the tracks of such hurricanes were altered away from this Gulf
of Mexico location, and/or the geomorphology of the region changed so that the technique
could not provide an accurate measure of such strong hurricanes before this time. These
methods provide promise in extending records of tropical cyclones well beyond the current few
decades of reliable standard historical data, provided that they are able to be calibrated
accurately against hurricanes that occurred in the instrumental record.

V. Future Climate - how tropical cyclones may change in coming years
a. Extrapolation of past variations
As a first approximation of tropical cyclone activity in the next decade or two, one can simply
extrapolate past variations in the data - that is assuming that such trends are not artificially-
induced and that a quasi-periodicity actually exists in the cyclone activity. Three basins - the
Australian, the Northwest Pacific and the Atlantic - have been examined in enough detail
possibly to allow some suggestions for what the late 1990s and first decade of the 21st century
may bring.
In the Australian basin as detailed earlier, Nicholls et al. (1997) identified an substantial
downward trend in the numbers of tropical cyclones over the period of 1969/70 through
1995/96, the non-artificial portion of which is linked to having more frequent El Nio events
during the late 1970s through the early 1990s than earlier. If more frequent El Nio events
were to continue in the coming decades, then the Australian region would likely continue to
receive fewer than normal tropical cyclones. The continuation in the trend in ENSO is
dependent upon its cause. One possibility is that the increased El Nio activity is due to natural
variability of the ocean-atmosphere system (e.g. Gray et al. 1997). However, Trenberth and
Hoar (1996) suggest that the extremely long-running El Nio event of late 1990 through early
1995 was not due to natural fluctuations, but instead may be due to climate changes
associated with increases in greenhouse gases. Such a statement is not supported by general
circulation model (GCM) simulations because GCMs characterize ENSO variability poorly.
Thus until the cause of the trend in ENSO is known, suggestions that there will be a
continuation of frequent El Nio events resulting in fewer Australian tropical cyclones for the
next decade or two is probably not very prudent.
Chan and Shi (1996) uncovered a decrease in Northwest Pacific typhoons and total number of
tropical storms from the late 1950s through the late 1970s, followed by a nearly comparable
increase from the early 1980s until the mid-1990s. However, since the mechanism for these
variations is unknown, a further extrapolation of the increase in the 1980s and 1990s into the
future would also be unfounded.
The one region where it may be possible to make a reasonable assessment of future climate
trends is the Atlantic, because of the multidecadal variations in hurricane activity that have
been described and to some extent understood. As described above, while the total number of
tropical storms and hurricanes do not vary greatly on a multidecadal time scale, the intense
hurricanes show a strong variation. More numerous intense hurricanes occur, such as in the
decades of the 1940s through the 1960s, while the North Atlantic is warmer than average and
the South Atlantic is cooler. Converse conditions of few intense hurricanes were observed in
the 1970s through the early 1990s while the North Atlantic was cool and the South Atlantic was
warm. It has been hypothesized (Gray et al. 1997) that these multidecadal oceanic
temperature and hurricane changes are regulated by the strength of the thermohaline
circulation and North Atlantic deep water formation - portions of the global "Great Ocean
Conveyor" (Broecker 1991). Given that the Sahel drought and wet regimes also occur in
conjunction with the Atlantic intense hurricane quiet and active periods, respectively (Gray
1990, Landsea et al. 1992), and that the Sahel has experienced several multidecadal periods
of wet and dry conditions over at least the last few hundreds of years (Nicholson 1989), it
stands to reason that these fluctuations are a natural manifestation of the ocean-atmospheric
system and that an end to the Sahel drought and Atlantic hurricane quiet period of the 1970s-
early 1990s would soon come to an end. In fact, Gray (1990) predicted as much:
"If these past variations are a reasonable indication of the future, then we should expect an
eventual recurrence of somewhat heavier Western Sahel precipitation, possibly during the
1990s and the early years of the 21st century. With such a rainfall increase, we should also
expect a return of more frequent intense hurricane activity in the Caribbean Basin and along
the U. S. coastline."
The hyperactive Atlantic hurricane seasons of 1995 and 1996 with a total of 32 named storms,
20 hurricanes and especially 11 intense hurricanes may indicate the start of such a return to
active conditions (Gray et al. 1996, Goldenberg et al. 1997). The 11 intense hurricanes over
two years represents a 450% increase over the frequency of intense hurricanes during 1991-
1994 and a 139% increase over the long-term (1950-1990) average of 2.2 intense hurricanes
per year. Along with the increase in hurricane activity, the West Sahel rainfall has returned to
near average conditions for 1994-1996, the first three year stretch of near to above normal
rainfall since 1965-1967 (Landsea et al. 1996b). Corresponding to, and most likely leading,
these changes in the Atlantic intense hurricane and West Sahel rainfall, are rather dramatic
increases in the North Atlantic SSTs from 5

N to 60

N and a cooling of the South Atlantic
SSTs from 5

N to 50

S (Gray et al. 1996). It is also possible that such changes were
beginning to occur in 1988-1989 - which were two years of high West Sahel rainfall and active
Atlantic hurricane seasons - but that the highly anomalous long-running El Nio event of late
1990 through early 1995 acted to mask the enhancing effects of the Atlantic SSTs
(Goldenberg et al. 1997). More in depth research is needed to better define if indeed this
change in the Atlantic SSTs with the attendant effects on Atlantic hurricanes and Sahel rainfall
has occurred; if it has switched, when the change took place; and how long would an active
intense hurricane regime stay in place.

b. The effects of anthropogenic global warming
Two impacts of anthropogenic climate change due to increasing amounts of "greenhouse"
gases that may occur (Houghton et al., 1990, 1992, 1996) are increased tropical sea surface
temperatures (Fig. 12) and increased tropical rainfall associated with a slightly stronger ITCZ
(Fig. 13). Note in these figures the 0.5 to 1.5

C warming of the tropical and subtropical SSTs
and an overall increase in the ITCZ precipitation near the equator, though the precipitation
changes show a "noisier" signal. Because of these possible changes, there have been many
suggestions based upon global circulation and theoretical modeling studies that increases may
occur in the frequency (AMS Council and UCAR Board of Trustees 1988; Houghton et al.
1990; Broccoli and Manabe 1990; Ryan et al. 1992; Haarsma et al. 1993), area of occurrence
(Houghton et al. 1990; Ryan et al. 1992), mean intensity (AMS Council and UCAR Board of
Trustees 1988; Haarsma et al. 1993), and maximum intensity (Emanuel 1987; AMS Council
and UCAR Board of Trustees 1988; Houghton et al. 1990; Haarsma et al. 1993; Bengtsson et
al. 1996) of tropical cyclones. In contrast, there have been some conclusions that decreases in
frequency may result (Broccoli and Manabe 1990; Bengtsson et al. 1996). Finally, one report
concluded that any changes in frequency or intensity due to increased greenhouse gases
would be "swamped" by the large natural variability (Lighthill et al. 1994). As discussed earlier,
there is currently no evidence at the present time that there have already been systematic
changes in the observed tropical cyclones around the globe.
Any changes in tropical cyclone activity are intrinsically tied in with large-scale changes in the
tropical atmosphere. One key feature that has been focused upon has been possible changes
in SSTs. However, SSTs by themselves cannot be considered without corresponding
information regarding the moisture and stability in the tropical troposphere. What has been
identified in the current climate as being necessary for genesis and maintenance for tropical
cyclones (e.g. SSTs of at least 26.5C) would likely change in a 2 x CO
2
world because of
possible changes in the moisture or stability. It is quite reasonable that an increase in tropical
and subtropical SSTs would be also accompanied by an increase in the SST threshold value
needed for cyclogenesis because of compensating changes in the tropospheric most static
stability (Emanuel 1995). Such difficulties then make it problematic to address the issue as
Ryan et al. (1992) did in using Gray's (1979) "Genesis Parameter" to diagnose changes in
large-scale fields from GCM output for tropical cyclone frequency and area of occurrence
issues. Indeed, Watterson et al. (1995) found that Gray's Genesis Parameter, while quite
useful for diagnosis of the mean climatology of tropical cyclone frequency and area of
occurrence, was not able to correctly anticipate interannual fluctuations in tropical cyclone
activity and thus, probably would not be useful for analysis of future climate states.
Additionally, besides the thermodynamic variables, changes in the tropical dynamics will also
play a big role in determining changes in tropical cyclone activity. For example, if the vertical
wind shear over the tropical North Atlantic moderately increased (decreased) during the
hurricane season in a 2 x CO
2
world, then we would see a significant decrease (increase) in
activity because this particular basin is marginal for tropical cyclone activity. Another large
unknown is how the monsoonal circulations may change. If the monsoons become more
active, then it is likely that more tropical cyclones in the oceanic monsoon regions would result.
In contrast to other GCM results (e.g. the "variable cloud" run in Broccoli and Manabe 1990,
Haarsma et al. 1993, etc.), Bengtsson et al. (1996) show that a GCM climate with doubled
carbon dioxide amounts compared with pre-industrialized values produces substantially fewer
tropical cyclones around the world because of a weakened ITCZ and monsoonal circulations.
However, the downscaling technique utilized (i.e. a high resolution atmospheric GCM run for
five years run from the SST boundary conditions from the 60th year of a low resolution GCM
run) appears to be flawed because the ITCZ response to increased carbon dioxide was
actually opposite in the low resolution model (Landsea 1997b), thus calling into question the
validity of Bengtsson et al.'s results.
One last final wild card in all of this is how ENSO may change in a 2 x CO
2
world, as ENSO is
the largest single factor controlling year-to-year variability of tropical cyclones globally
(Landsea 1997a). If El Nio events occur more often or with more intensity, then the
inhabitants along the Atlantic basin and in Australia would likely have fewer tropical cyclones to
worry about, whereas people living in the South Central Pacific would have more storms to
prepare for. The reverse would be true if La Nia events became more prevalent. As described
earlier, El Nio events indeed have become more frequent in occurrence during the most
recent two decades, actually resulting in some of the changes noted above. It is currently
unknown whether this trend toward more El Nio events is simply natural variability or is due to
anthropogenic forcing.
Overall, it is difficult to assess globally how changes of tropical cyclone intensities (both the
mean and the maximum), frequencies, and area of occurrence may change in a 2 x CO
2
world.
It is because of this uncertainty that the 1995 Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change
assessment (Houghton et al. 1996) came out with this straightforward admission:
"The formation of tropical cyclones depends not only on sea surface temperature (SST), but
also on a number of atmospheric factors. Although some models now represent tropical storms
with some realism for present day climate, the state of the science does not allow assessment
of future changes."

Clearly, much more investigation is needed to narrow down the uncertainties that are currently
in this field of tropical cyclone climate change. Currently, there is no convincing evidence that
there will be a systematic increase in the tropical cyclone mean intensity, maximum intensity or
frequency due to increases in "greenhouse gases". Nor, for that matter, is there strong
evidence for decreases in hurricane, typhoons and tropical cyclones. It may turn out that
changes around the globe will not be consistent; some regions may experience more activity,
others less.
VI. Summary
Tropical cyclones - including hurricanes and typhoons - have been and continue to be
extremely disruptive events for inhabitants in the global tropics and subtropics. Knowledge of
how and why the characteristics of these coupled ocean-atmospheric systems have changed
in the past is a topic of much interest. With a more complete understanding, we will be better
prepared to answer the question: "How will tropical cyclone activity change in future years?".
Progress is being made in analyzing both the interannual fluctuations of tropical cyclone
activity (see review by Landsea 1997a) as well as the multidecadal facet. In this chapter, three
basins - the Australian, the Northwest Pacific and the Atlantic - have been examined in detail.
In the remaining basins, reliable records are too short to demonstrate reliable trends. For long-
term trends in total frequency of events, the Australian basin has shown a decline (since the
late 1960s), the Northwest Pacific is now showing an increase after experiencing a decrease in
frequency from the late 1950s through 1980, while the Atlantic has been fairly constant since
the mid-1940s. For mean intensity, the Australian basin has very little trend, the Northwest
Pacific has shown a downward trend during the 1960s and 1970s and an upward trend in
intensity of events since, and the Atlantic has been observed to have a quasi-cyclic
multidecadal regime that alternates between active and quiet phases of mean intensity on the
scale of 25-40 years each. Such variations in Atlantic hurricanes are mirrored by normalized
destruction amounts that occurred in the United States. For maximum intensity, only the
Atlantic has been examined revealing no substantial trend or consistent variation in the
strongest hurricane each year.
While the multidecadal variations for the Northwest Pacific currently have no explanation, there
exist plausible reasons for the changes in regimes in the Australian and Atlantic basins. The
decline in the Australian tropical cyclones are due to increasing El Nio events during the late
1970s through the early 1990s. The quiet decades of the 1970s to the early 1990s for intense
Atlantic hurricanes are likely due to changes in the Atlantic Ocean SST structure with cooler
than usual waters in the North Atlantic and warmer in the South Atlantic. The reverse situation
of a warm North Atlantic and a cool South Atlantic was present during the active 1940s through
the 1960s. A natural fluctuation of the Great Ocean Conveyer and the associated North
Atlantic deep water formation has been hypothesized as being responsible for such SST and
Atlantic hurricane changes.
Extrapolation of these multidecadal variations into the future is uncertain. Until an explanation
is found for the Northwest Pacific upward trend in frequency and intensity (as well as the
downward fall in both during the late 1950s through the late 1970s), a decadal forecast is
doubtful. For the Australian basin, if one could be assured that the more frequent El Nio
events would continue, then a continued low number of tropical cyclones would be expected
for this area. However, the mechanism for such El Nio changes over the past couple of
decades is not understood and thus, a decadal scale forecast of Australian cyclones would not
be prudent. The only basin that might be reliably forecast is the Atlantic because of the large,
apparently natural fluctuations of the Atlantic SSTs on a multidecadal timescale. It is possible
that the hyperactive seasons of 1995 and 1996 signal a return of the active regime (of an
unknown duration) to the Atlantic, though more research is needed to confirm or deny such a
hypothesis.
Over even longer timescales, the question has been raised as to the possible impact of
anthropogenic global warming on tropical cyclones around the world. Unfortunately, due to our
inability to simulate tropical cyclones on the scale needed within the context of a GCM,
because of conflicting model results, and due to our lack of knowledge about the processes of
tropical cyclogenesis and intensification, there is no convincing evidence for systematic
changes to occur in the frequency, mean intensity, maximum intensity, and area of occurrence
of tropical cyclones. Indeed, looking for a systematic global signal common to all tropical
cyclone basins is not the most reasonable approach. Because of strong links with global
phenomena such as the El Nio-Southern Oscillation, tropical cyclone activity in various basins
is not independent of one another. An increase in activity in one region may be instead be
accompanied by a decrease in tropical cyclone activity in another basin. It will take continued
efforts toward increasing our understanding before more definitive answers are available for
the global warming question.
VII. Acknowledgments I would like to acknowledge the helpful support and encouragement of
Hugh Willoughby and Stan Goldenberg here at the NOAA/AOML/Hurricane Research Division.
Bill Gray of Colorado State University has also sparked many useful and enlightening
discussions on the topic. Roger Pielke, Sr., Roger Pielke, Jr. and three anonymous reviewers
provided quite helpful comments that clarified and enhanced this review chapter. The author
thanks the Bermuda Biological Research Station's Risk Prediction Initiative for providing
financial support through a grant on the topic of interannual tropical cyclone variability.
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Footnotes:
1
However, documented cases exist (e.g. Atlantic Hurricane Karl in 1980 [Lawrence and
Pelissier 1981]) where this sea surface temperature (SST) threshold of 26.5

C was not
necessary. It may be instead that SSTs exceeding this amount are a general proxy for an
environment that is conditionally unstable to moist convection (see item 2). Conditions can -
and apparently do - set up on occasion to allow for conditional moist instability in waters cooler
than 26.5

C.
2
While formal U.S. armed forces aircraft reconnaissance was begun in the Northwest Pacific
in 1945 (Guard et al. 1992), the U.S. Joint Typhoon Warning Center (JTWC) considers data
only from 1959 onward as reliable (JTWC 1974). However, the aircraft data could and should
be utilized in a tropical cyclone "reanalysis" to extend the trustworthy records back as far as
possible for this basin.
3
While records are available for the entire Atlantic basin hurricanes back to the late 1800s
(Jarvinen et al. 1984) and for landfalling hurricanes along the United States coastline back to
the 16th Century (Ludlum 1989), reliably knowing the intensity of such systems extends for a
much briefer period of time. For the whole Atlantic basin, accurate intensity measures exist
back to 1944 at the commencement of routine aircraft reconnaissance (Neumann et al. 1993),
but even these data have been arbitrarily corrected to remove an overestimation bias in the
winds of intense hurricanes during the 1940s through the 1960s (Landsea 1993). For U.S.
landfalling hurricanes, observations of minimum central pressure provide accurate records
back to 1899 for nearly all hurricanes (Jarrell et al. 1992). Before this year, records of intensity
at landfall are incomplete and can only provide very rough estimates of the hurricanes'
strength.
4
"Subtropical storms" are non-frontal low pressure systems comprising initially baroclinic
circulations developing over subtropical waters with sustained one minute surface winds of at
least 18 ms
-1
(NOAA 1997). Such nomenclature has been utilized since 1968, though it is likely
that these systems were designated as tropical storms previously. Thus, failure to include the
subtropical storms into the climate record examined would introduce an artificial bias into the
database (Neumann et al. 1993).
5
This curious measurement of past hurricanes can be obtained due to the characteristic of
primarily the most intense tropical cyclone rainfall having quite low oxygen-18 isotope
concentrations compared with other types of local rainfall (Lawrence and Gedzelman, 1996).

Created by. Noel J. Charles
Dec 10, 1999