T162 Extreme Climate and Weather Events: Past, Present, and Future
Tuesday, 11 October 2011
8:00 AM - 12:00 PM
Room L100A-C
HURRICANES IN THE CLIMATE SYSTEM
Paper number: T162-4
Program: Technical Sessions
Time: 8:55 AM – 9:15 AM
Authors
Abstract
Records of hurricane activity over the past century or so have made it abundantly clear that activity levels are sensitive to the climate state. In this brief talk, I will review this evidence together with recent findings from the young field of paleotempestology and place such records in the context of recent theoretical advances. These, together with the results of downscaling global climate models, will be used to assess the quality of recent projections of the response of hurricane activity to anthropogenic climate change. Finally, I will review evidence that clustering of tropical convection in general, and hurricanes in particular, may have important effects on the climate itself, with implications for understanding past climates.