CMI Annual Report 2022

North Atlantic hurricane tracks includes a substantial
component arising from weather-scale fluctuations, which can
be thought of as effectively random. This implies that
predicting multi-decadal changes in hurricane tracks will
remain challenging and require a probabilistic framework.
Figure 7.1.
Percentage of the 10
highest flood peaks on
record (left) and yearly
flood peaks (right) that
were produced by TCs.
Each symbol represents
a stream gage (Liu et al.,
2022).
Finally, the researchers explored the characteristics of
hurricane-induced flooding in the Carolinas, by looking at
recent, observed TCs (Liu et al., 2022). They found that in the
Carolinas TCs are a dominant driver of floods (Figure 7.1); the
top 10 TCs account for 2/3 of the record floods in the Carolinas
– which highlights the impact of these rare extreme events in
flooding. These results highlight local vulnerability to
warming climates in the Carolinas, since the peak rainfall of
TCs is expected to increase considerably in response to a
warming climate (Liu et al., 2019).
References
Bhatia, K. et al, 2022. A potential explanation for the global
increase in tropical cyclone rapid intensification. Nature
Communications 13:6626. (https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-022-
34321-6).
Bhatia, K., G. Vecchi, H. Murakami, S. Underwood, and J.
Kossin, 2018. Projected response of tropical cyclone intensity
and intensification in a global climate model. Journal of
Climate 31(20):8281-8303. (https://doi.org/10.1175/
JCLI-D-17-0898.1).
Bhatia, K., G.A. Vecchi, T. Knutson, H. Murakami, J. Kossin,
K.W. Dixon, and C.E. Whitlock, 2019. Recent increases in
tropical cyclone intensification rates. Nature Communications
10,635. (https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-019-08471-z).
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Carbon Mitigation Initiative Twenty-second Year Report 2022