High-resolution downscaling of tropical cyclones in the Caribbean region.
A CORDEX Flagship Pilot Studies (FPS) proposal.
PI: Albenis Pérez-Alarcón.
Goal:
Climate studies project that tropical cyclone (TC) activity will change in a warming climate. For example, some studies have found that TC will be more intense in a warming world, but the globally averaged TC frequency has shown a tendency to decrease. However, these projections have some uncertainties, among others, related to the still coarse resolution of current models to capture some processes, e.g., the eyewall of major hurricanes and eyewall replacement cycles, which are involved in the development and intensification of TCs.
Furthermore, tropical regions are the most affected by the impacts of this weather system, and these regions have many small islands which do not exist in coarser models. That is the case of the Caribbean region, comprising the small islands of the Lesser Antilles Arc. Indeed, the geophysical features and the population and infrastructures often located in coastal zones make the Caribbean region extremely vulnerable to climatic changes. In this context, high-resolution climate modelling enables a more realistic simulation of small island local atmospheric circulation and small-scale processes with impacts on TCs, including the formation patterns, genesis potential index, intensity estimation and the relative impact on precipitation and hence potentially improves the robustness and trust in future projections. Therefore, this PFS aims to perform a dynamic downscaling of climate model projections to investigate the future behaviour of TCs in the Caribbean region. This aim will be achieved by high-resolution downscaling of the bias-corrected CMIP6 dataset under the climate change scenarios SSP5-8.5 and SSP2-4.5 and the NESM3 model data under 1.5 °C and 2 °C global warming scenarios for the end (2071-2100) of the century using the Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) model. The model will run using three nested domains of 27, 9 and 3 km of spatial resolution covering the Caribbean region and aiming “convection-permitting” for the highest resolution grid.
The TC climatology and atmospheric circulation patterns in the historical period (1985-2014) will be assessed against observational TC data from the United States National Hurricane Center, reanalysis data, in-situ observation from weather stations and CORDEX simulations over the Central America domain, which includes the Caribbean region. These efforts will result in detailed regional projections of tropical cyclone behaviour and associated impacts, including the regional moisture transport pattern and future changes of precipitation produced by TCs and the possible negative and positive influences on the regional hydrological cycle, which are essential to policymakers for designing strategies for multi-sectorial adaptation, reduction of risks and vulnerabilities, and create natural hazard preparedness and climate resilience.
Overall, the expected outcomes of this PFS are aligned with CORDEX's vision and goals, providing high-quality regional climate data and enhancing understanding of regional climate variability and change. Moreover, this FPS has the potential to contribute to the coordinated efforts on regional and national climate modelling studies between the Caribbean Community Climate Change Centre, the Institute of Meteorology of Cuba, the University of the West Indies and the Caribbean Institute for Meteorology and Hydrology.
Team
PI: Albenis Perez Alarcón
EPhysLab-UVigo
Dr. Luis Gimeno, Dr. Raquel Nieto, Dr. Rogert Sorí, Dr. Milica Stojanovic, Dr. Marta Vázquez
IDL-Lisbon University:
Dr. Ricardo M. Trigo, Dr. Pedro M. Soares
Meteorological Institute of Cuba - Atmospheric Physics Institute
Dr. Maibys Sierra Lorenzo, BSc. Pedro Manuel González Jardines
Meteorology Department InSTEC - University of La Habana
BSc. Thalia Maricet Gómez Lino