Abstract
Direct observation of the maximum wind in tropical cyclones is extremely rare because of the violence of the environment, the paucity of ocean-borne observing stations, and the remoteness and size of the storms. Besides raising confidence in historical tropical cyclone climate records – which are currently inadequate for climate studies – accurate measurements of the tropical cyclone wind structure and other characteristics are particularly important to more accurately forecast storms, thus mitigating economic and human loss. Large amounts of resources have been devoted to develop innovative methods to adequately observe these systems. This chapter will present an overview of the observing systems and instruments that are used to observe tropical cyclone winds in the early twenty-first century, including in situ and remote sensing approaches. Techniques used to determine the maximum wind speed in the frequent absence of more direct observations are also discussed.
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Acknowledgments
Dr. Daniel J. Cecil (NASA Marshall Space Flight Center) contributed Fig. 4.5 and provided helpful information about the HIRad program. Yankee Environmental Systems provided the dropsonde data from Fig. 4.5; they were processed by Dr. Michael Bell at the University of Hawaii. Dr. Mark Powell (RMS/H*Wind Scientific) provided valuable insights on measuring tropical cyclone winds from buoys. Derrick Herndon (Space Science and Engineering Center, University of Wisconsin) provided Fig. 4.6 and improved the discussion on SATCON.
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Hennon, C.C., Wright, E.E. (2017). Modern Tropical Cyclone Wind Observation and Analysis. In: Collins, J., Walsh, K. (eds) Hurricanes and Climate Change. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-47594-3_4
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