An Analysis of Translation Distance of Tropical Cyclones over the Western North Pacific

Abstract

Tropical cyclone (TC) translation distance, proportional to its duration and translation speed, basically determines the spatial extent of TC-impacted marine and terrestrial areas. Although a long-term slowdown of TCs has recently been reported, changes in translation distance of TCs over the western North Pacific (WNP) and their driving mechanisms remain poorly understood. Using multiple TC datasets, here we find that the trends are opposite in overland translation distance of landfall WNP TCs over China and excluding China, with the number of landfalls in the two groups being almost the same. However, the increase in overland translation distance of landfall TCs over China is offset by a greater decrease in that excluding China, with the result that the overland translation distance of TCs over the WNP has declined (−4.0% decade