Projected future changes in Tropical cyclones using the CMIP6 HighResMIP multimodel ensemble

Future changes in tropical cyclone properties are an important component of climate change impacts and risk for many tropical and midlatitude countries. In this study we assess the performance of a multimodel ensemble of climate models, at resolutions ranging from 250 to 25 km. We use a common experimental design including both atmosphere-only and coupled simulations run over the period 1950–2050, with two tracking algorithms applied uniformly across the models. There are overall improvements in tropical cyclone frequency, spatial distribution, and intensity in models at 25 km resolution, with several of them able to represent very intense storms. Projected tropical cyclone activity by 2050 generally declines in the South Indian Ocean, while changes in other ocean basins are more uncertain and sensitive to both tracking algorithm and imposed forcings. Coupled models with smaller biases suggest a slight increase in average TC 10 m wind speeds by 2050.
M. J. R. and J. C. acknowledge the support from the UK‐China Research and Innovation Partnership Fund through the Met Office Climate Science for Service Partnership (CSSP) China as part of the Newton Fund. M. J. R., J. S., P. L. V., K. H., B. V., R. H., A. B., E. S., L.‐ P. C., L. T., C. D. R., R. S., and D. P. acknowledge funding from the PRIMAVERA project, funded by the European Union's Horizon 2020 Framework Programme under Grant 641727. J. M. acknowledges funding from the Blue‐Action project, funded by the European Union's Horizon 2020 Framework Programme under Grant 727852. Funding for P. U. and C. Z. to support the use of the TempestExtremes suite was provided under National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) Award NNX16AG62G and the U.S. Department of Energy Office of Science Award DE‐SC0016605. C. K. and Y. Y. acknowledge funding from the Environment Research and Technology Development Fund (2RF‐1701) by the Environmental Restoration and Conservation Agency (ERCA) of Japan and from the Integrated Research Program for Advancing Climate Models (TOUGOU) Grant JPMXD0717935457 by the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (MEXT) of Japan. The CESM1.3 simulations are completed through the International Laboratory for High‐Resolution Earth System Prediction (iHESP)—a collaboration among QNLM, TAMU, and NCAR, from which D. F., Q. Z., G. D., N. R., H. W., and L. W. acknowledge funding. NCAR is a major facility sponsored by the U.S. National Science Foundation under Cooperative Agreement 1852977. The CESM1.3 simulations were performed on Frontera at the Texas Advanced Computing Center.
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