Tropical Cyclones

Tropical Cyclones (TCs) belong to the most extraordinary events in nature. On average 40 to 50 TCs with maximum winds of more than 120 km/h are forming each year worldwide (Frank and Young, 2007). Their size, which can exceed 8° in latitude, but also the possible covered distance of up to 10,000 km (only four TCs have been recorded so far with longer tracks) and their enormous maximum wind gusts, which can reach 300 km/h, puts them on the list of the most dangerous events in nature.

TCs are greatly influenced by large scale dynamics. Notably, the 2013 North Atlantic Hurricane season, which showed unusually low activity, has been hypothesized to be greatly influenced by an abundance of Rossby wave breaking events.

While many climate models struggle substantially to produce TCs, recent developments in supercomputing have made it possible to use horizontal resolutions that allow TCs to be well represented. This allows for the investigation of dynamical influences on North Atlantic Hurricanes on a seasonal time scale, using the numerical models ICON-LAM and S-NICAM.