Downward trends in the frequency of intense at Atlantic Hurricanes during the past five decades

Landsea, Christopher W.; Nicholls, Neville; Gray, William M.; Avila, Lixion A.

doi:10.1029/96gl01029

Cited by 150 publications

(71 citation statements)

References 14 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Unclassified

Order By: Relevance

“…An increasing number of publications have addressed this topic, in order to gain an understanding both of the mechanisms responsible for their frequency and intensity (i.e. Landsea et al 1996, Chang & Shin 2000 and of their environmental, social and economical consequences (i.e. Diaz & Pulwarty 1997).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Typhoons in the Philippine Islands, 1901-1934

Ribera

García‐Herrera²,

Gimeno³

et al. 2005

Clim. Res.

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

A chronology of typhoons and storms in the Western North Pacific is presented, based on the previous work of Miguel Selga, a former director of the Manila Observatory. It includes data about 863 typhoons, storms and depressions over the western Pacific area between 1901 and 1934. The chronology provides information covering a wide area, from Guam to the Gulf of Tonkin and from the equator to Japan. The resulting typhoon series has been included in a database, which is freely accessible, and annual typhoon occurrence and trajectories are also shown. A comparison of the typhoon passage frequency over the Philippine area with a previously available chronology was made to assure the validity of Selga's observations, showing good agreement. KEY WORDS: Climate variability · Typhoons · Western Pacific Ocean Resale or republication not permitted without written consent of the publisherClim Res 29: [85][86][87][88][89][90] 2005 described and made available. Selga's (1935) original work consists of a chronology of typhoons in the vicinity of The Philippines lasting from the 16th century to 1934; it is divided into 2 periods: 1564-1900 and 1901-1934. The first period contains mostly reports from historical records and has been analyzed in R. Garcia-Herrera et al. (unpubl.). The second period includes mostly direct instrumental observations made by the Manila Observatory and its associated network. The present paper analyses the 1901-1934 period. During this period, the Manila Observatory, founded and supervised by the Jesuits, acted as the meteorological agency of the islands (Udías 2003). In the final section of our paper, an analysis of the geographical probability distribution of typhoon-passage frequency was performed, with the aim of detecting differences between Selga's data and analyses conducted in the instrumental period. The recent work by Ho et al. (2004) was used to provide a comparison with Selga's chronology. DATA AND METHODSThe data presented and analyzed in this paper have been extracted from the Catalogue of Typhoons 1348Typhoons -1934, which is an addendum to Selga (1935). It includes information for 863 events, of which 619 are included as typhoons, the others being catalogued as storms or depressions. The starting date of 1901 was selected in this study, because this is then when the US Administration entrusted control of the newly created Philippines Weather Bureau to the Manila Observatory. The meteorological service was established with 9 first-class, 25 second-class and 17 third-class stations, though not all of them were actually operational. Additionally, meteorological information was shared among different services/observatories, including ones located in Taiwan, Shanghai and Manila (Udías 2003). Thus, the chronology is not limited to The Philippines but covers most of the WNP.All the events listed were direct observations from one of the observatories; their descriptions include complete dating information. As an example, 4 reports have been included in Table 1. The first repor...

show abstract

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Typhoons in the Philippine Islands, 1901-1934

Ribera

García‐Herrera²,

Gimeno³

et al. 2005

Clim. Res.

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…6 Likewise, there is significant evidence that the number of intense hurricanes has decreased in the past several decades, as has the number of severe storms. Landsea et al (1996) point out that public perceptions of a rise in hurricane intensity and frequency likely stem from the enormous damages wrought by disasters such as Hurricane Andrew in 1992, which cost the nation $25 billion. In fact, much of the destruction hurricanes have wrought is due to swelling numbers of coastal residents and the proliferation of property development in coastal areas, both of which contribute heavily to economic losses.…”

Section: ______________mentioning

confidence: 99%

Assessing Federal Research and Development for Hazard Loss Reduction

Meade

Abbott²

2003

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

PREFACELosses resulting from natural hazards are a large and growing problem in the United States. While attention tends to focus on the problems that immediately follow devastating floods, hurricanes, earthquakes, and wildfires, the ongoing costs to the U.S. economy are enormous, on the order of hundreds of millions of dollars each week.Broad efforts to address this problem are in place across the federal government. Within the White House, the Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) plays a key role in coordinating the research and development policies upon which the technical response to hazard losses is based. To support OSTP in this task, RAND carried out a comprehensive analysis of current hazard loss R&D funding, identifying programs and activities that contribute to hazard loss reduction. The analysis addressed the following questions:• What is the distribution of federal R&D funding across various hazards and across areas of focus (prediction, infrastructure improvements, mitigation techniques)?• What criteria determine the allocation of these funds?• How do these R&D efforts contribute to hazard loss reduction?This report presents the analysis and its findings, along with a number of policy recommendations for increasing the effectiveness of current R&D efforts. About the White House Office of Science and Technology PolicyThe Office of Science and Technology Policy was created in 1976 to provide the President with timely policy advice and to coordinate the federal investment in science and technology. About the Science and Technology Policy InstituteOriginally created by Congress in 1991 as the Critical Technologies Institute and renamed in 1998, the Science and Technology Policy Institute is a federally funded research and development center sponsored by the National Science Foundation and managed by RAND. The Institute's mission is to help improve public policy by • Helps science and technology decisionmakers understand the likely consequences of their decisions and choose among alternative policies.• Helps improve understanding in both the public and private sectors of the ways in which science and technology can better serve national objectives.In carrying out its mission, the Institute consults broadly with representatives from private industry, institutions of higher education, and other nonprofit institutions. SUMMARYIn recent decades, the United States has experienced a decline in the numbers of lives lost due to natural hazards such as earthquakes, hurricanes, floods, and droughts. At the same time, the associated costs of these events are escalating. Between 1978 and 1989, the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) paid out about $7 billion in disaster relief funds. In the next dozen years, however, payouts increased almost fivefold, to over $39 billion. 1 The primary cause of the rise in losses appears to be the growing population in areas that are vulnerable to natural hazards. Demographic changes, most dramatically, the mass human migration to coastal and other high-risk are...

show abstract

“…Among various metrics commonly used for measuring the total TC activity, the "number of tropical cyclones" (hereafter NTC) is perhaps the most popular due to its easyto-interpret nature (Landsea et al 1996;Chen et al 1998;Goldenberg et al 2001;Emanuel 2006). Since NTC only considers the total number of TC formations in an ocean basin, the contribution from intensity and duration of a TC is by no means included.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…For instance, by analyzing the occurrence frequency of intense hurricanes over the Atlantic Ocean, Landsea et al (1996) found a downward trend of TC activity during the period 1950 ~ 1995. In contrast, by analyzing the time series of PDI, Emanuel (2005) found an upward trend of TC activity roughly over the same period.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Contrasting Various Metrics for Measuring Tropical Cyclone Activity

Yu¹,

Chiu²

2012

Terr. Atmos. Ocean. Sci.

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Popular metrics used for measuring the tropical cyclone (TC) activity, including NTC (number of tropical cyclones), TCD (tropical cyclone days), ACE (accumulated cyclone energy), PDI (power dissipation index), along with two newly proposed indices: RACE (revised accumulated cyclone energy) and RPDI (revised power dissipation index), are compared using the JTWC (Joint Typhoon Warning Center) best-track data of TC over the western North Pacific basin. Our study shows that, while the above metrics have demonstrated various degrees of discrepancies, but in practical terms, they are all able to produce meaningful temporal and spatial changes in response to climate variability. Compared with the conventional ACE and PDI, RACE and RPDI seem to provide a more precise estimate of the total TC activity, especially in projecting the upswing trend of TC activity over the past few decades, simply because of a better approach in estimating TC wind energy. However, we would argue that there is still no need to find a "universal" or "best" metric for TC activity because different metrics are designed to stratify different aspects of TC activity, and whether the selected metric is appropriate or not should be determined solely by the purpose of study. Except for magnitude difference, the analysis results seem insensitive to the choice of the best-track datasets.

show abstract

Downward trends in the frequency of intense at Atlantic Hurricanes during the past five decades

Cited by 150 publications

References 14 publications

Typhoons in the Philippine Islands, 1901-1934

Typhoons in the Philippine Islands, 1901-1934

Assessing Federal Research and Development for Hazard Loss Reduction

Contrasting Various Metrics for Measuring Tropical Cyclone Activity

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About