Enlarging Rainfall Area of Tropical Cyclones by Atmospheric Aerosols

Chuanfeng Zhao*, Yanluan Lin, Fang Wu, Yang Wang, Zhanqing Li, Daniel Rosenfeld, Yuan Wang

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

103 Scopus citations

Abstract

The size of a tropical cyclone (TC), measured by the area of either rainfall or wind, is an important indicator for the potential damage by TC. Modeling studies suggested that aerosols tend to enhance rainfall in the outer rainbands, which enlarges the eyewall radius and expands the extent of rainfall area. However, no observational evidence has yet been reported. Using TC rainfall area and aerosol optical depth (AOD) data, we find that aerosols have a distinguishable footprint in the TC size. Other dynamical factors for TC size, such as relative SST and Coriolis parameter, are also quantified and discussed. We show that, on average, TC rainfall size increases 9–20 km for each 0.1 increase of AOD in the western North Pacific. This finding implies that anthropogenic aerosol pollution can increase not only TC rainfall rate, but also TC rainfall area, resulting in potentially more destructive flooding affecting larger areas.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)8604-8611
Number of pages8
JournalGeophysical Research Letters
Volume45
Issue number16
DOIs
StatePublished - 28 Aug 2018

Bibliographical note

Publisher Copyright:
©2018. The Authors.

Keywords

  • aerosol optical depth
  • rainfall area
  • rainfall intensity
  • Tropical cyclone
  • western North Pacific

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