100 SOLA, 2016, Vol. 12, 100−105, doi:10.2151/sola.2016-023 A Possible Reduction in the Severity of Typhoon Wind in the Northern Part of Japan under Global Warming: A Case Study Rui Ito1, Tetsuya Takemi1, and Osamu Arakawa2 1Disaster Prevention Research Institute, Kyoto University, Kyoto, Japan 2University of Tsukuba, Tsukuba, Japan caused severe disasters on human lives, agriculture, and industries. Abstract Typhoon Songda underwent an extratropical transition and reintensification while it passed over the Sea of Japan and Typhoon Songda (2004), while undergoing an extratropical Hokkaido (Fujibe et al. 2006; Kitabatake et al. 2007). Instanta- transition and reintensification over the Sea of Japan, spawned neous wind speed marked the new record at more than half of the serious damages over forest areas in the northern part of Japan. To observation sites in Hokkaido. The peak gust was 51.5 m s−1 at clarify influences of anticipated global warming on the typhoon a site in northeast Hokkaido. Widespread forest damages by the hazard in high-latitude regions, we carried out numerical exper- windstorm were serious problem on the ecosystems (Sano et al. iments on Typhoon Songda in a current climate and a pseudo 2010; Hayashi et al. 2015). Because it is anticipated that extreme global warming climate and examined the impacts of climate typhoons become more intensified under future global warming, it change on the typhoon intensify and windstorms for the region. is important to understand the impacts of climate change in high- The typhoon intensity at its maturity becomes stronger in a warm- er-latitude regions on the intensity of typhoons and the resultant ing climate, and the typhoon while passing over the Sea of Japan hazard. weakens more rapidly in the warming climate. Thus the strong The environmental factors that induce extratropical transition wind over the northern part of Japan in the warming climate also have been demonstrated in previous studies. Klein et al. (2000) becomes weaker. We examined atmospheric environmental factors presented a conceptual model for the transition using the transi- in the higher-latitude region: sea surface temperature, vertical tions in the western North Pacific. Jones et al. (2003) showed a shear, and meridional gradient of temperature. It was found that process of the transition based on Klein et al. (2000) and presented the environmental meridional gradient of temperature at the 500 the relevant environmental factors. Kitabatake (2013) indicated hPa level is smaller in the warming climate than in the current cli- that the atmospheric environment transforms the typhoon struc- mate, which indicates that the baroclinicity becomes weak under ture, and additionally, the system needs to have characters of an global warming. The weak baroclinicity makes the typhoon envi- extratropical cyclone to complete the transition. After the transi- ronment unfavorable for the extratropical transition, and therefore, tion, some of the system occasionally happen to reintensify. Based possibly reduces the severity of typhoon wind in northern Japan. on these studies, this study focuses on the environmental condi- (Citation: Ito, R., T. Takemi, and O. Arakawa, 2016: A possi- tions for Typhoon Songda. ble reduction in the severity of typhoon wind in the northern part This study investigates the influences of climate change on the of Japan under global warming: A case study. SOLA, 12, 100−105, severity of a typhoon in the northern part of Japan by conducting doi:10.2151/sola.2016-023.) numerical experiments for Typhoon Songda as a case study. The experiments were carried out for two different climate conditions: real atmospheric condition in September 2004 as a current cli- 1. Introduction mate and a pseudo global warming (PGW) condition as a future September climate. Here, we focused on the severe windstorm Understanding the influences of climate change on tropical by Typhoon Songda over Hokkaido. Additionally, we discussed cyclones (TCs) is one of the major challenges from the viewpoint the impacts of climate change on the typhoon intensity and the of not only scientific concerns but also impact assessments of windstorm by considering changes in the environmental factors climate change on natural hazard. Increases in the intensity and presented by Jones et al. (2003). frequency of typhoons under global warming have been discussed (Knutson et al. 2010). In the Fifth Assessment Report of the Inter- governmental Panel on Climate Change, it is projected that in a 2. Experimental design future warming climate the global frequency of TCs decreases or stays constant and the strongest TCs become stronger (Christensen The numerical experiments for Typhoon Songda were per- et al. 2013). However, the level of the certainties in the projections formed with the Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) model is lower depending on regions. Murakami et al. (2012) indicated version 3.6.1 (Skamarock et al. 2008). The computational domain that the global frequency of intense TCs is projected to increase covers the region with 13.7°N−51.7°N and 111.1°E−168.9°E for and the frequency of TCs will increase or decrease varying the outermost domain, that with 38.1°N−46.6°N and 135.9°E− with the part of the Pacific using the Meteorological Research 148.0°E for the intermediate domain and that with 41.1°N−45.4°N Institute Atmospheric General Circulation Model (MRI-AGCM). and 139.6°E−146.6°E for the innermost domain. The grid interval Therefore, assessments for the influence of the warming should be for each domain is 9 km, 3 km and 1 km. We applied the two-way conducted region by region. nesting technique between the parent and the child domain. The Damages by TCs become more significant in the regions number of vertical levels is 57 and the model top is 20 hPa. Kain- where TCs seldom approach or make landfall, especially in the Fritsch scheme was used every 10 minute as a cumulus scheme higher-latitude regions. Furthermore, in the case of undergoing an for the outermost domain. WRF single-moment 6-class scheme extratropical transition the damages become more severe, such as (Hong and Lim 2006) was employed as a microphysics scheme. It in the cases of Typhoon Mireille (1991), Typhoon Songda (2004) is important for the representation of surface wind to adequately and Hurricane Sandy (2012) (Gary 2015; Fujibe et al. 2006; Kita- select a planetary boundary layer physics scheme. Because Mellor- batake et al. 2007). Typhoon Marie (1954) and Typhoon Songda Yamada-Janjic scheme was utilized for representing extreme passes over the northern part of Japan, including Hokkaido and weather due to Typhoon Songda in Oku et al. (2010), the scheme was selected here. Corresponding author: Rui Ito, Disaster Prevention Research Institute, The experiment for the outermost domain was initialized at Kyoto University, Gokasho, Uji, Kyoto 611-0011, Japan. E-mail: rui.ito@ 0000 UTC 3 September 2004. The time integration was started storm.dpri.kyoto-u.ac.jp. ©2016, the Meteorological Society of Japan. at 0000 UTC 5 September for the intermediate domain, and at Ito et al., Reduction in the Severity of Typhoon Wind under Global Warming 101 0000 UTC 7 September for the innermost domain. The initial and between the current and future climate (e.g. Takemi et al. 2012). lateral boundary data were provided from the Japanese 55-year We also did not add the increments of winds in order to prevent reanalysis (JRA-55) dataset with spatial resolution of 1.25° unwanted effects of wind field on the track of the typhoon, such and time interval of 6 hour (Kobayashi et al. 2015). To impose as deflecting the future track from the current track. By taking influences of synoptic-scale atmospheric conditions on the com- the increments of winds out of consideration, concerns about the putational area, the spectral nudging option was imposed on the dynamic balance of the atmosphere may arise; however, there horizontal wind above the 700-hPa level on the outermost domain. were few unpractical issues at carrying out this experiments for The maximum wavenumber nudged is 2 and the nudging coeffi- the purpose of the impact assessment. The horizontal distributions cient is 0.00028 s−1. A typhoon bogus scheme was introduced for of the increment about the surface variables, and the vertical pro- better representing the typhoon intensity at the initial time. The file of the temperature increment are shown in Fig. 1. bogus scheme inserts a synthetic Rankin vortex using information In the PGW experiments for the ensemble-mean SST warm- for maximum wind (Davis and Low-Nam 2001). We set the ing, we examined two cases: an addition of the increments on all maximum wind speed, 70 m s−1, at the radius of 75 km from the the above variables (Case I) and an addition of the increments center for the synthetic vortex by reference to the observed data of only on surface air temperature, SST, and temperature (Case II). the Regional Specialized Meteorological Center (RSMC) Tokyo- We also conducted the PGW experiments with the three pattens Typhoon Center. of the SST warming for taking into account the uncertainty of the The future condition for the PGW climate was made by projected future climate due to different SST patterns. In these adding the global-warming increments of the future climate from PGW experiments, we added the warming increments of SST and the current climate on the initial and boundary condition produced temperatures. The experiments are referred to Case IIa, IIb, and from JRA-55 (Sato et al. 2007). The climate data are the simu- IIc for the Cluster 1, 2, and 3, respectively in the study of Mizuta lated results by MRI-AGCM version 3.2 with 20-km resolution et al.