stretched configuration that allows a local horizontal resolution of less than 15 km over the tropical North Atlantic basin.
Sea surface temperatures (SST) arise from a previous lower resolution simulation of the Coupled Model Intercomparison
Project-5 exercise and corrected through a quantile–quantile method. Moreover, five-member ensemble simulations have
been performed for both present and RCP8.5 scenario climates. For validation purposes, another five-member ensemble
simulation has been performed with prescribed observed SST. Tracking of tropical cyclones (TCs) in these simulations reveals
that the intensity of the simulated TCs are quite realistic and may reach the strongest hurricane ever observed, allowing to
distinguish between TC categories in the analysis. Although the model tends to underestimate the occurrence of TCs over low
latitudes, the realism of simulated TCs has nevertheless improved compared to previous versions of the model, due to both
increased resolution and changes in the parameterizations used in the model. Changes observed in the simulations between
present and future climates confirm previous results stating that there is no clear change in the overall number of TCs but an
increase in the intensity of major hurricanes as well as an increase of rainfall in all TC categories. A new result suggests that
TC activity response to climate warming may be significantly different from 1 month of the hurricane season to another. In
our simulations we observe a robust decrease of TCs in the tropics in July while August and September experience a large
increase of TCs over the mid-latitudes. Finally, we find a relation between a large increase in TC activity near the African
coast and changes in the African atmospheric dynamics and rainfall in September.