ALBERT

Description: The landfall of tropical cyclones (TCs) will bring about a series of natural disasters, causing great amount of damage and loss of life and property along coastal areas. The destructiveness and socio-economic impact of TCs are not only related to the scale of maximum wind speed, but also to the outward extension of the tangential wind field, which is generally characterized by the TC outer size (often measured by the radius of gale-force winds). This study examines the changes in the outer size distribution of landfalling tropical cyclones over Chinese mainland during the period of 1977-2020. The period was divided into two epochs: 1977-1998 and 1999-2020.The results show that the size distribution of landfalling TCs over South China has no apparent change, while that of landfalling TCs over East China (LTC〈sub〉EC〈/sub〉) is more concentrated in the second epoch. Also, the difference in the median sizes of landfalling TCs between East China and South China become more significant. It is found that LTC〈sub〉EC〈/sub〉 formed over the western part of western North Pacific shifted to larger size range (300-500 km) at landfall during the second epoch, while those formed over the eastern part of western North Pacific rarely grew to extremely large size (500 km). Dynamical reasons for the changes in size between the two epochs and links to the recent climate regime shift near the end of the twentieth century have been investigated. More details will be presented at the conference.