Division Leader: GFDL Weather and Climate Dynamics Division
emailTom.Knutson@noaa.gov
Focus Areas:
- Tropical Cyclones and Climate Change
- Detection and Attribution of Climate Change
- Climate Variability
- Climate Change Assessments
Thomas R. Knutson
Senior Scientist, NOAA/GFDL
Feature: Interview with Andy Revkin (Sustain What substack) on Hurricanes and Climate Change (June 1, 2024). YouTube recording.)
Feature: NOAA webinar series (Nov. 14, 2023): Atlantic Hurricanes and Climate Change.(YouTube recording)
Feature: Crucial role of sea surface temperature warming patterns in near-term high-impact weather and climate projection. Ming Zhao and T. Knutson, npj Climate and Atmospheric Science (2024) see GFDL Research Highlight.
Feature: Is precipitation changing in your region due to human-caused climate change?
Feature: WMO Expert Team assessments of tropical cyclones and climate change: Detection and attribution (2019) and Projected response to anthropogenic warming (2020).
Research Interests
- Tropical Cyclones and Climate Change:
- Global warming and hurricanes (Overview web page, last updated Nov. 20, 2024).
- Changes in Atlantic major hurricane frequency since the late 19th century. (Nature Communications, 2021) by Vecchi, et al.
- Global increase in tropical cyclone rapid intensification. (Nature Communications, 2022) by Bhatia et al.
- More Tropical Cyclones and Climate Change Publications…
- Detection and Attribution of Climate Change:
- Sea Level Pressure Trends: Model-Based Assessment of Detection, Attribution, and Consistency with CMIP5 Historical Simulations. Journal of Climate (2020)
- Precipitation trends over land regions: model assessment of detectable human influences and possible low bias in model trends Journal of Climate (2018).
- Regional surface temperature trends during the 20th century: assessment of CMIP3 and CMIP5 simulations (Journal of Climate, 2013). See Research Highlight page (summary of article).
- More Detection and Attribution of Climate Change Publications…
- Climate Variability
- A Multivariate AMV Index and Associated Discrepancies Between Observed and CMIP5 Externally Forced AMV. Geophysical Research Letters (2019) by X. Yan, R. Zhang, and T. Knutson.
- Underestimated AMOC Variability and Implications for AMV and Predictability in CMIP Models. Geophysical Research Letters (2018) by X. Yan, R. Zhang, and T. Knutson
- Atlantic major hurricane frequency: Its recent decline and the role of the Atlantic overturning circulation. (Nature Communications, 2017) by X. Yan, R. Zhang, and T. Knutson
- More Climate Variability Publications…
Climate Change Assessment Activities
- NOAA State of the Science Fact Sheet on “Atlantic Hurricanes and Climate Change” (May 2023)
- ScienceBrief on Tropical Cyclones and Climate Change published (March 2021)
- World Meteorological Organization Task Team assessment on “Tropical Cyclones and Climate Change”, published in the Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society in 2019 and 2020.
- Third Assessment Report on Impacts of Climate Change on Tropical Cyclones in the Typhoon Committee Region (Dec. 2019). Full Report.
- Climate Science Special Report, Fourth National Climate Assessment (NCA4), Vol. I (2017). (T. Knutson was lead author of Ch. 3: Detection and Attribution of Climate Change, and of Appendix C: Detection and Attribution Methodologies Overview.
- “Tropical Cyclones and Climate Change”, WMO Expert Team assessment (Nature Geoscience, March 2010). For a link to read the entire article, email: tom.knutson@noaa.gov
Publications
- Bibliography (including .pdf versions of abstracts and some full articles)
Technical Notes
- A Note on 20th Century Equatorial Pacific Sea Surface Temperatures as Reconstructed in the LDEO and UKMO Data Sets
- FMS Slab Ocean Model Technical Documentation
Data Sets
Climate Group Research
GFDL Global Warming Simulation
