Tropical cyclones in reanalysis data sets

Abstract

This study evaluates and compares tropical cyclones (TCs) in state-of-the-art reanalysis data sets including the following: the Japanese 55-year Reanalysis (JRA-55), Japanese 25-year Reanalysis, European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts Reanalysis-40, Interim Reanalysis, National Centers for Environmental Prediction Climate Forecast System Reanalysis, and NASA's Modern Era Retrospective Analysis for Research and Application (MERRA). Most of the reanalyses reproduce a reasonable global spatial distribution of observed TCs and temporal interannual variation of total TC frequency. Of the six reanalysis data sets, JRA-55 appears to be the best in terms of the following: the highest skill for spatial and temporal distribution of TC frequency of occurrence, highest TC hitting rate, lower false alarm rate, reasonable TC structure in terms of the relationship between maximum surface wind speed and sea level pressure, and higher correlation coefficients for interannual variations of TC frequency. These results also suggest that the finest-resolution reanalysis data sets, like MERRA, are not always the best in terms of TC climatology. © 2014. American Geophysical Union. All Rights Reserved.