Concurrent Changes to Hadley Circulation and the Meridional Distribution of Tropical Cyclones

TL;DR

This study investigates the relationship between Hadley circulation changes and tropical cyclone distribution shifts from 1981 to 2016, revealing significant correlations and potential dynamical mechanisms involving oceanic and atmospheric variability.

Contribution

It introduces novel diagnostics for local Hadley circulation analysis and demonstrates its link to tropical cyclone latitudinal shifts using observational and reanalysis data.

Findings

Tropical cyclone latitudes have shifted poleward at about 0.25 degrees per decade.

Local Hadley circulation extent explains approximately 35% of interannual variability in cyclone latitudes.

La Ni ilde{n}a-like SST gradients are associated with poleward HC extents and cyclone shifts.

Abstract

Poleward trends in seasonal-mean latitudes of tropical cyclones (TCs) have been identified in direct observations from 1980 to present. Paleoclimate reconstructions also indicate poleward-equatorward migrations over centennial to millennial timescales. Hadley circulation (HC) is often both implicitly and explicitly invoked to provide dynamical linkages to these shifts, although no direct analysis of concurrent changes in the recent period has been presented. Here the observational TC record (1981-2016) and the ERA-Interim, JRA55 and MERRA2 reanalyses are studied to examine potential relationships between the two. A zonally-asymmetric HC is defined by employing Helmholtz theory for vector decomposition and this permits the derivation of novel HC diagnostics local to TC basins. Coherent variations in both long-term linear trends and detrended interannual variability are found. TC genesis and lifetime maximum intensity latitudes share trend sign and magnitude with shifts in local HC extent, with rates being ~0.25 plus/minus 0.1 degrees latitude decade-1. Both these lifecycle stages in hemispheric means and all Pacific TC basins, as well as poleward-extreme North Atlantic lysis latitudes, shared ~35% of their interannual variability with HC extent. Local HC intensity is linked only to eastern North Pacific TC latitudes, where strong local overturning corresponds to equatorward TC shifts. Examination of potential dynamical linkages implicates La Ni\~na-like sea surface temperature gradients to poleward HC termini. This corresponds to increased tropical and reduced subtropical vertical wind shear everywhere except in the North Atlantic and western North Pacific, where the opposite is true. These results quantify a long-hypothesized link between TCs and the large-scale oceanic-atmospheric state.