Storm tracks in the CMIP5 models

Overview

I studied for a Ph.D. in Atmosphere, Oceans and Climate from the Department of Meteorology, University of Reading, supervised by Dr Kevin Hodges (University of Reading) and Dr Tim Woollings (University of Oxford).

My doctoral research project investigated the global changes in the storm tracks with relation to climatic change, along with understanding some of the CMIP5 model biases in their simulation of the storm tracks. Storms were identifying and tracked using Dr Kevin Hodges' TRACK program.

This section presents some of my plots from my PhD research. I have divided the work into sections on CMIP5 model biases when compared against reanalyses, and CMIP5 future projections, comparing the Radiative Concentration Pathways (RCPs) against the historical experiment. Intensity distributions from the cyclones in all experiments are also plotted for each season and both hemispheres. The IPCC AR5 page shows the multi-model mean track density changes and climatologies to accompany Figure 12.20 in Section 12.4.4.3, pp 1074-1075 of the IPCC AR5 WG1 Report. Please note that these pages show 20-year climatology length periods, as is required by the IPCC AR5. For 30 year climatology periods, please see within my PhD thesis. This research is currently being prepared for journal submission.

For a full description of the method* used for tracking and plotting the extratropical cyclones see: Hodges, K. I., R. W. Lee, L. Bengtsson, 2011: A Comparison of Extratropical Cyclones in Recent Reanalyses ERA-Interim, NASA MERRA, NCEP CFSR, and JRA-25. J. Climate, 24, 4888-4906. doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.1175/2011JCLI4097.1.

(* note: there are some minor differences in some parts of the CMIP5 analysis).

PhD Thesis

See here for a downloadable pdf of my PhD thesis.