COMPARISONS OF THE CHARACTERISTICS OF TROPICAL CYCLONES EXPERIENCING EXTRATROPICAL TRANSITION IN THE WESTERN NORTH PACIFIC BASED ON DIFFERENT DATASETS

Abstract:

The differences in the climatology of extratropical transition (ET) of western North Pacific tropical cyclones (TCs) were investigated in this study using the TCs best-track datasets of China Meteorological Administration (CMA), Japan Meteorological Agency (JMA) and the Joint Typhoon Warning Center (JTWC). The results show that the ET identification, ET completion time, and post-ET duration reported in the JTWC dataset are greatly different from those in CMA and JMA datasets during 2004–C2010. However, the key differences between the CMA and JMA datasets from 1951 to 2010 are the ET identification and the post-ET duration, because of inconsistent objective ET criteria used in the centers. Further analysis indicates that annual ET percentage of CMA was lower than that of JMA, and exhibited an interannual decreasing trend, while that of JMA was an unchanged trend. The western North Pacific ET events occurred mainly during the period June to November. The latitude of ET occurrence shifted northward from February to August, followed by a southward shift. Most of ET events were observed between 35° N and 45° N. From a regional perspective, TCs tended to undergo ET in Japan and the ocean east to it. It is found that TCs which experienced the ET process at higher latitudes were generally more intense at the ET completion time. TCs completing the ET overland or offshore were weaker than those finishing the ET over the ocean. Most of the TCs weakened 24 h before the completion of ET. In contrast, 21% (27%) of the TCs showed an intensification process based on the CMA (JMA) dataset during the post-ET period. The results presented in this study indicate that consistent ET determination criteria are needed to reduce the uncertainty involved in ET identification among the centers.