Developing a unified "SuperSet" in quantifying ambiguities among tropical cyclone best track data for the western North Pacific

In the western North Pacific basin, several agencies archive best track data of tropical cyclones. The Joint Typhoon Warning Center (JTWC) in Hawaii is responsible for the issuance of tropical cyclone warnings for United States Department of Defense interests and has a record of tropical cyclones extending back to 1945. The Japanese Meteorological Agency (JMA) is the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) official Regional Specialized Meteorological Center (RSMC) for the western North Pacific basin and has best track tropical cyclone data extending back to 1951. The Shanghai Typhoon Institute (SHI) of the Chinese Meteorological Administration and the Hong Kong Observatory (HKO) of the Government of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region also have 6-hourly tropical cyclone data records from 1949 and 1961, respectively. HKO has arguably the longest record of tropical cyclones for the basin, with daily tropical cyclone data available from 1884.

Western North Pacific (NWPAC) data sets are investigated in order to quantify ambiguities in position and intensity estimates between the forecast institutions through the development of a unified "SuperSet." Ambiguities amongst the primary warning centers (JMA and JTWC) are presented in the context of a changing observation network, observational tools, and analysis techniques since the beginning of tropical cyclone records. Furthermore the applicability of adopting an individual data set in discerning long term climate trends is examined in light of these differences. Past efforts to analyze, assemble, and maintain a complete, reliable best track tropical cyclone data set for the NWPAC are discussed among topical methods of incorporating the "SuperSet" within a basin-wide reanalysis.