Hurricane footprints in global climate models

Abstract

This paper addresses the identification of hurricanes in low-resolution global climate models (GCM). As hurricanes are not fully resolvable at the coarse resolution of the GCMs (typically 2.5 × 2.5 deg), indirect methods such as analyzing the environmental conditions favoring hurricane formation have to be sought. Nonetheless, the dynamical cores of the models have limitations in simulating hurricane formation, which is a far from fully understood process. Here, it is shown that variations in the specific entropy rather than in dynamical variables can be used as a proxy of the hurricane intensity as estimated by the Accumulated Cyclone Energy (ACE). The main application of this research is to ascertain the changes in the hurricane frequency and intensity in future climates.