Evaluation of Simulated Tropical Cyclones over the Western North Pacific with IAP AGCM4.1 Based on K-Means Method

As the atmospheric component of CAS-ESM1 (Chinese Academy of Sciences Earth System Model, version 1), IAP-AGCM4.1 (Institute of Atmospheric Physics Atmospheric General Circulation Model, version 4.1) is being developed independently by Institute of Atmospheric Physics. In this study, the authors used TECA (Toolkit for Extreme Climate Analysis) to identify and evaluate tropical cyclones (TC) over the western North Pacific simulated by IAP AGCM4.1 from 1979 to 2012. The results show that IAP AGCM4.1 can reproduce the spatial distribution, track, and source of TC reasonably well compared to observation data, but it underestimates the number of TC, with only 36% of the observed tropical cyclones over the western North Pacific simulated. Further analysis using K-means clustering revealed that this underestimation is mostly due to the model’s inability to reproduce northwestward-turning and westward TC. For TC with westward–northwestward, westward-turning, and eastward-turning tracks, the numbers simulated are approximately 39%, 48%, and 85% of those observed, respectively. Moreover, the correlation coefficients of the seasonal variations between simulated and observed TC can reach 0.91, with duration biases of roughly 1–2 d. IAP AGCM4.1 performs well in simulating the tracks of the westward–northwestward and eastward-turning TC, with relative biases ranging between 1%–5% for the longitude of the centroid, 4%–16% for the latitude of the centroid, and 5%–15% for the latitudinal and meridional standard deviations. In addition, IAP AGCM4.1 reproduces the evolutions of environmental circulation and subtropical highs quite well during the lifetime of eastward-turning TC, with the simulated strength and area indexes of the subtropical highs highly correlated with the observations (the correlation coefficient is 0.89). The poor simulations of northwestward-turning and westward TC are likely due to simulated biases in the subtropical high.