Enhanced western North Pacific tropical cyclone activity in May in recent years

The tropical cyclone (TC) power dissipation index (PDI) in May over the western North Pacific (WNP) region shows a remarkable increase from the pre-1999 years (1979–1999) to the post-1999 years (2000–2011). Both increased TC numbers and enhanced TC intensity contributed to the change in the PDI. The averaged TC number in May increased from 1.05 per year in the pre-1999 years to 1.75 per year in the post-1999 years. In particular, the number of intense typhoon goes up from 0.14 per year to 0.83 per year, implying a sharp increase of TC intensity. Examination of the large scale background circulation in May shows that the epochal increase of TC number is caused by a significant increase of the genesis potential index (GPI), which has increased by about 33 % from the first (1979–1998) to the second (1999–2011) epoch over the TC genesis region (110°E–160°E, 5°N–20°N). The higher TC intensity is related to the increased maximum potential intensity and reduced TC ambient vertical wind shear in the second epoch. These decadal changes in background conditions over the WNP are the results of the enhanced summer monsoon in May over the both South Asia and South China Sea.