RAFT Synthetic Tropical Cyclones for Climate Risk Assessment, 1980-2100

The RAFT synthetic tropical cyclone dataset was generated by Karthik Balaguru of Pacific Northwest National Laboratory for a 2022 Science Advances paper on increased US coastal hurricane risk under climate change. It contains 50,000 synthetic storms per file for historical (1980-2014) and future (2066-2100) periods under the SSP585 scenario from a CMIP6 global climate model. Variables include storm latitude, longitude, year, Julian day, and maximum surface wind speed.

Use Cases

• Assessing large-scale changes in hurricane risk under climate change based on the dataset's stated purpose.
• Analyzing synthetic storm tracks and intensity based on latitude, longitude, and maximum wind speed variables.
• Comparing historical and future tropical cyclone activity based on data for the 1980-2014 and 2066-2100 periods.
• Downscaling climate model outputs for hazard modeling based on the use of CMIP6 GCM inputs.

Strengths

• Contains 50,000 synthetic tropical cyclones per file, providing a large ensemble for analysis.
• Explicitly documents a key limitation regarding intensity underestimation, aiding proper interpretation.
• Covers two distinct time periods (historical 1980-2014 and future 2066-2100) for comparative climate studies.

Limitations

• The synthetic tropical cyclones' lifetime maximum intensity is underestimated due to model biases and low temporal resolution inputs.
• Column-level documentation is absent for all variables beyond the five listed; field semantics for other variables must be inferred after download.
• The dataset is intended only for assessing large-scale risk change and should not be treated as example storms without bias correction.

Provenance

Source

Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, author Karthik Balaguru.

Collection Method

Generated by the RAFT model using statistical-dynamical downscaling of CMIP6 global climate models.

Time Range

Historical: 1980-2014; Future: 2066-2100 under SSP585 scenario.

Geography

Spatial coverage is not explicitly stated but likely focuses on regions relevant to US coastal hurricane risk.