The Impact of Best Track Discrepancies on Global Tropical Cyclone Climatologies using IBTrACS

Abstract

Abstract Using the International Best Track Archive for Climate Stewardship (IBTrACS), the climatology of tropical cyclones is compared between two global best track datasets: 1) the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) subset of IBTrACS (IBTrACS-WMO) and 2) a combination of data from the National Hurricane Center and the Joint Typhoon Warning Center (NHC+JTWC). Comparing the climatologies between IBTrACS-WMO and NHC+JTWC highlights some of the heterogeneities inherent in these datasets for the period of global satellite coverage 1981–2010. The results demonstrate the sensitivity of these climatologies to the choice of best track dataset. Previous studies have examined best track heterogeneities in individual regions, usually the North Atlantic and west Pacific. This study puts those regional issues into their global context. The differences between NHC+JTWC and IBTrACS-WMO are greatest in the west Pacific, where the strongest storms are substantially weaker in IBTrACS-WMO. These disparities strongly affect the global measures of tropical cyclone activity because 30% of the world’s tropical cyclones form in the west Pacific. Because JTWC employs similar procedures throughout most of the globe, the comparisons in this study highlight differences between WMO agencies. For example, NHC+JTWC has more 96-kt (~49 m s−1) storms than IBTrACS-WMO in the west Pacific but fewer in the Australian region. This discrepancy probably points to differing operational procedures between the WMO agencies in the two regions. Without better documentation of historical analysis procedures, the only way to remedy these heterogeneities will be through systematic reanalysis.