Observed Trends in Hurricane Power Dissipation

Observed Trends in Hurricane Power Dissipation

Recent variations of the Power Dissipation Index (PDI) in the North Atlantic and eastern North Pacific Oceans. PDI is an aggregate of storm intensity, frequency, and duration and provides a measure of total hurricane power over a hurricane season. There is a strong upward trend in Atlantic PDI, and a downward trend in the eastern North Pacific, both of which are well-supported by the reanalysis. Separate analyses (not shown) indicate a significant increase in the strength and in the number of the strongest hurricanes (Category 4 and 5) in the North Atlantic over this same time period. The PDI is calculated from historical data (IBTrACS73711f67-22e4-469a-af2a-6a426e41f472) and from reanalyses using satellite data (UW/NCDC & ADT-HURSAT6d2920f6-f06d-41fd-83e7-1fd61c40ae49,f748a8e5-7925-4fb4-a64c-57dd77279670). IBTrACS is the International Best Track Archive for Climate Stewardship, UW/NCDC is the University of Wisconsin/NOAA National Climatic Data Center satellite-derived hurricane intensity dataset, and ADT-HURSAT is the Advanced Dvorak Technique–Hurricane Satellite dataset (Figure source: adapted from Kossin et al. 20076d2920f6-f06d-41fd-83e7-1fd61c40ae49).

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Physical Climate, Observations, Extreme Events