UNDERSTANDING MULTIDECADAL CLIMATE CHANGES

The 2012 National Taiwan University International Science Conference on Climate Change focused on two of the most difficult challenges in the study of climate change. The 23 invited reviews at the conference were presented in hour-long segments, each beginning with a lecture and followed by discussion. These reviews were augmented by 20 contributed oral and poster papers. The AMOC fingerprints described at the meeting may be used for reconstructing AMOC variations in the past and monitoring AMOC variations in the future. Modeling studies indicate that the AMOC weakens most at northern high latitudes in response to increasing greenhouse gas concentrations. The number, intensity, tracks, and landfall locations of WNP TCs also exhibit strong decadal or multidecadal variations. When adjusted for likely missed TCs, the observational record does not show evidence of a significant secular trend in North Atlantic hurricane activity.