Relationship between the tropical cyclone genesis over the Northwest Pacific and the sea surface temperature anomalies

Using the tropical cyclone (TC) data derived from the Joint Typhoon Warning Center (JTWC) and the sea surface temperature data derived from the Joint Environmental Data Analysis Center (JEDAC) at the Scripps Institute of Oceanography from January 1955 to December 2000, we analyzed the relationship between the TC genesis over the Northwest Pacific (NWP) and the sea surface temperature anomalies (SSTA) over the Pacific basin. A long-term trend indicated that the highest frequency of monthly TC genesis appeared earlier and the annual genesis sum increased gradually during the last half century with some oscillations. No significant synchronous correlation was found between the NWP TC events and the SSTA over the Pacific basin, while the annual sum of TC genesis was closely related with the SSTA averaged from the first three months (January, February and March) of the year in the equatorial western and eastern Pacific and over mid-high latitudes of the North Pacific. The results implied that there are an interannual El Nio SSTA mode in the equatorial western and eastern Pacific and an interdecadal SSTA mode in the northern Pacific, which affected the TC genesis. A regression analysis between the first three-month SSTA and the annual TC sum based on two time scales was conducted. The correlation coefficient between simulated and observed TC sums reached a high value of 0.77.