A global climatology of baroclinically influenced tropical cyclogenesis

All basins other than the North Atlantic are dominated by nonbaroclinic events; however, there is extensive interbasin variability in secondary development pathways. Within each basin, subregions and time periods are identified in which the relative importance of the development pathways also differs. The efficiency of tropical cyclogenesis is found to be highly dependent on development pathway.

The peak efficiency defined in the classification subspace straddles the nonbaroclinic/trough-induced boundary, suggesting that the optimal environment for TC development includes a baroclinic contribution from an upper-level disturbance. By assessing the global distribution of baroclinically influenced TC formations, this study identifies regions and pathways whose further study could yield improvements in our understanding of this important subset of TC developments.