Climate Anomalies in the Southeast Asian Region surrounding Typhoon Haiyan's landfall in the Philippines

Abstract

The link between climate and typhoons are well studied, particularly in determining if changes in typhoon characteristics are forced by certain climate anomalies / trends. However, only few assessed the impact of a typhoon event to the weather / climate anomalies surrounding the typhoon period. In Southeast Asia, no study investigated the effects of Super Typhoon Haiyan that devastated the Philippines, to the weather / climate variables before and after its landfall. This thesis aims to analyze the spatio-temporal anomalies using observational and reanalysis datasets i.e., GPCP, CRU, HadISST and ERA5, exploring temperature and precipitation, to determine how anomalies surrounding the Haiyan period compare with meteo-climatic variability between the non-typhoon and typhoon months / years. Using wind, pressure, precipitation and runoff data, the daily spatio-temporal evolution of abnormal weather patterns surrounding the landfall period (before, during, and after) is determined, and their inter-variable correlation is measured. Regression and other statistical treatments were also carried out to understand which environmental signal is likely impacted by the typhoon event - whether it corresponds to changes in temperature, pressure, wind, precipitation, or runoff values. The effects of seasonal phases and inter-annual variations (dry/wet, monsoon, ENSO) on precipitation and temperature patterns were also assessed.