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Titel |
Quantifying changes of wind speed distributions in the historical record of Atlantic tropical cyclones |
VerfasserIn |
K. Chen, J. McAneney, K. Cheung |
Medientyp |
Artikel
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Sprache |
Englisch
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ISSN |
1561-8633
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Digitales Dokument |
URL |
Erschienen |
In: Natural Hazards and Earth System Science ; 9, no. 5 ; Nr. 9, no. 5 (2009-10-30), S.1749-1757 |
Datensatznummer |
250006996
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Publikation (Nr.) |
copernicus.org/nhess-9-1749-2009.pdf |
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Zusammenfassung |
Here we re-examine the official Atlantic basin tropical cyclone (hurricane)
database HURDAT (1851–2008) and quantify differences between wind speed
distributions in the early historical (1851–1943) record and more recent
observations. Analyses were performed at three different geographical levels:
for all six-hourly track segments of all Atlantic basin events, all segments
of all events that crossed the US mainland, and US landfalling segments
alone. At all three geographical levels of study, distributions of windspeeds
over the last two, four and six decades display negligible dispersion or
systematic change over time. On the other hand and relative to wind speed
frequencies for subsequent years, the 1851–1943 record has a marked and
statistically significant over-representation of wind speeds largely
corresponding to Saffir-Simpson Categories 1 and 2 and under-representation
of Categories 4 and 5 events; importantly, no single Category 5 event is
recorded prior to 1924. The stability of the distribution of windspeeds at
landfall over the last six decades, the dataset in which we can have most
confidence, suggests that the differences in the earlier record are most
likely explained by well-known measurement and observational deficiencies.
Moreover by disaggregating the Power Dissipation Index (PDI), we demonstrate
that the upward trend in Atlantic basin PDI since 1970s does not imply
stronger and longer duration Category 5 windspeeds despite a warming climate.
These results have implications for hurricane catastrophe loss modeling for
the insurance industry and long-term trend analyses of the historical wind
speed record, especially those related to the attribution of the role of
Global Climate Change. |
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