Abstract
By using instrumental surface air pressure (SAP) records for 1885–2017 at Hong Kong (HK) station, SAP data for 1951–2016 at 66 stations over mainland China and modern tropical cyclones (TCs) of 1951–2017 derived from the Best Tracks (BT) dataset over Northwest Pacific, an objective identification method (OIM) for TCs is developed. Taking HK station as an example, the general distance of detectable landing TCs and the SAP thresholds are determined by utilizing the correlation between the SAP metrics at HK station and those at each landing site for all 392 real modern TC processes during the period of 1951–2016. Then, a long series of TCs affecting HK station for 1885–2017 is reconstructed by applying the thresholds of daily mean SAP and 24-h SAP difference to observed SAP data during the whole stage. The misjudgment of this OIM is about 10%, and it provides a homogeneous series of TCs affecting HK area during 1885–2017. The reconstructed annual TC series shows a visible decreasing trend from 1885 to 2017, with a more obvious reduction occurring after the early 1960s. Specifically, the 10 years of 1994–2003 had the smallest number of TCs. This SAP-based method developed in this study is potentially applicable for other areas.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Barcikowska M, Feser F, Zhang W, Mei W (2017) Changes in intense tropical cyclone activity for the western North Pacific during the last decades derived from a regional climate model simulation. Clim Dyn 49:2931–2949. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00382-016-3420-0
Briffa KR, Jones PD (1993) Global surface air temperature variations during the twentieth century: part 2, implications for large-scale high-frequency palaeoclimatic studies. Holocene 3:77–88. https://doi.org/10.1177/095968369300300109
Chan JCL, Liu KS (2004) Global warming and western North Pacific typhoon activity from an observational perspective. J Clim 17:4590–4602. https://doi.org/10.1175/3240.1
Chan JCL, Shi E (2000) Frequency of typhoon landfall over Guangdong Province of China during the period of 1470–1931. Int J Climatol 20:183–190
Chin PC (1972) Tropical cyclone climatology for the China seas and Western Pacific from 1884 to 1970. Royal Observatory, Hong Kong
Fogarty EA, Elsner JB, Jagger TH, Liu KB, Louie KS (2006) Variations in typhoon landfalls over China. Adv Atmos Sci 23:665–677. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00376-006-0665-2
Gao YX, Zeng YE (1957) Typhoon tracks map and some statistics (in Chinese). Science Press, Beijing
Gao JY, Jiang ZH, You LJ, Zhang RY (2007) Variations in activities of Fujian-affecting tropical cyclones during 1884-2003 (in Chinese with English abstract). J Appl Meteor Sci 18(2):211–218. https://doi.org/10.11898/1001-7313.20070211
Grossman M, Zaiki M (2009) Reconstructing typhoons in Japan in the 1880s from documentary records. Weather 64:315–322. https://doi.org/10.1002/wea.401
Hofstra N, Haylock M, New M, Jones P, Frei C (2008) Comparison of six methods for the interpolation of daily, European climate data. J Geophys Res 113:D21110. https://doi.org/10.1029/2008JD010100
Hung CW (2013) A 300-year typhoon record in Taiwan and the relationship with solar activity. Terr Atmos Ocean Sci 24:737–743. https://doi.org/10.3319/TAO.2013.02.18.01(A)
Jones PD, Osborn TJ, Briffa KR (1997) Estimating sampling errors in large-scale temperature averages. J Clim 10:2548–2568
Kobayashi Y, Pan W (2014) Reconstruction of 2 significant typhoon paths in the 17th century Japan (in Chinese with English abstract). J Earth Environ 5(6):363–369
Kossin JP (2018) A global slowdown of tropical-cyclone translation speed. Nature 558:104–107. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-018-0158-3
Kumazawa R, Fudeyasu H, Kubota H (2016) Tropical cyclone landfall in Japan during 1900-2014 (in Japanese with English abstract). TENKI 63:855–861 https://www.metsoc.jp/tenki/pdf/2016/2016_11_0003.pdf
Ladlow C, Woodruff JD, Cook TL, Baranes H, Kanamaru K (2019) A fluvially derived flood deposit dating to the kamikaze typhoons near Nagasaki, Japan. Nat Hazards 99:827–841. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11069-019-03777-z
Lai YC, Li JF, Gu XH, Chen YQD, Kong DD, Gan TY, Liu MF, Li QQ, Wu GF (2020) Greater flood risks in response to slowdown of tropical cyclones over the coast of China. PNAS 117:201918987. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1918987117
Liu KS, Chan JCL (2008) Interdecadal variability of western North Pacific tropical cyclone tracks. J Clim 21:4464–4476. https://doi.org/10.1175/2008JCLI2207.1
Liu KB, Shen CM, Louie KS (2001) A 1,000-year history of typhoon landfalls in Guangdong, southern China, reconstructed from Chinese historical documentary records. Ann Assoc Am Geogr 91(3):453–464
Louie KS, Liu KB (2003) Earliest historical records of typhoons in China. J Hist Geogr 29:299–316. https://doi.org/10.1006/jhge.2002.0453
Nagata R, Mikami T (2017) Reconstruction of typhoon tracks around Japan using daily precipitation data, 1901-2000 (in Japanese). Annual Meeting of the Association of Japanese Geographers, Spring 2017. https://doi.org/10.14866/ajg.2017s.0_100006
Pan W, Wang MS, Man ZM, Cui JX (2012) Reconstruction of the affecting East China typhoon frequency, 1644~1911 AD (in Chinese with English abstract). Resources and Environment in the Yangtze Basin 21(2):237–241
Ren F, Wang Y, Wang X (2007) Estimating tropical cyclone precipitation from station observations. Adv Atmos Sci 24(4):700–711. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00376-007-0700-y
Ren ZH, Yu Y, Zou FL, Xu Y (2012) Quality detection of surface historical basic meteorological data (in Chinese with English abstract). J Appl Meteor Sci 23(6):739–747
Wang XL, Chen H, Wu Y, Pu Q (2010) New techniques for detection and adjustment of shifts in daily precipitation data series. J Appl Meteor Climatol 49(12):2416–2436. https://doi.org/10.1175/2010jamc2376.1
Williamson F, Allan R, Ren G, Lee TC, Lui WH, Kubota H, Matsumoto J, Luterbacher J, Wilkinson C, Wood K (2018) Collating historic weather observations for the East Asian region: challenges, solutions and reanalyses. Adv Atmos Sci 35:899–904. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00376-017-7259-z
Willmott CJ, Clinton MR, Philpot WD (1985) Small-scale climate maps: a sensitivity analysis of some common assumptions associated with grid-point interpolation and contouring. Am Cartographer 12:5–16. https://doi.org/10.1559/152304085783914686
Xue XY, Ren GY, Sun XB (2019) Climatological characteristics of meso-scale and micro-scale strong convective weather events in China (in Chinese with English abstract). Climatic Environ Res 24(2):59–73. https://doi.org/10.3878/j.issn.1006-9585.2018.17148
Ying M, Zhang W, Yu H, Lu X, Feng J, Fan Y, Zhu Y, Chen D (2014) An overview of the China Meteorological Administration tropical cyclone database. J Atmos Ocean Technol 31:287–301. https://doi.org/10.1175/JTECH-D-12-00119.1
Yu Z, Yu H, Chen P, Qian C, Yue C (2009) Verification of tropical cyclone–related satellite precipitation estimates in mainland China. J Appl Meteor Climatol 48:2227–2241. https://doi.org/10.1175/2009JAMC2143.1
Zhang XP, Ye Y, Fang XQ (2012) Reconstruction of typhoons in the Yangtze River Delta during 1644–1949AD based on historical chorographies. J Geogr Sci 22(5):810–824. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11442-012-0965-7
Zhang Y, Hidalgo J, Parker D (2017a) Impact of variability and anisotropy in the correlation decay distance for precipitation spatial interpolation in China. Clim Res 74:81–93. https://doi.org/10.3354/cr01486
Zhang QH, Ni X, Zhang FQ (2017b) Decreasing trend in severe weather occurrence over China during the past 50 years. Sci Rep 7:42310. https://doi.org/10.1038/srep42310
Zhu Q, Lin J, Shaowen S, Dongsheng T (2000) Principles and methods of synoptic meteorology (in Chinese). China Meteorological Press, Beijing
Acknowledgements
NMIC and STI of CMA, and ISPD provided the data used in the study. We are also grateful to the three anonymous reviewers for their valuable comments and guidance that greatly improved this manuscript.
Funding
This work was sponsored by the National Key Research and Development Program of China (grant numbers 2018YFA0605603 and 2016YFA0600301).
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Additional information
Publisher’s note
Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.
This article is part of the topical collection on “Historical and recent change in extreme climate over East Asia,” edited by Guoyu Ren, Danny Harvey, Johnny Chan, Hisayuki Kubota, Zhongshi Zhang, and Jinbao Li.
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Zhang, Y., Ren, Y., Ren, G. et al. Surface air pressure–based reconstruction of tropical cyclones affecting Hong Kong since the late nineteenth century. Climatic Change 164, 57 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10584-021-03028-w
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10584-021-03028-w