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Introduction to Hurricane Dynamics: Tropical Cyclone Intensification

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Advanced Numerical Modeling and Data Assimilation Techniques for Tropical Cyclone Prediction

Abstract

The broad aim of this set of two articles (chapters 21 and 22) on tropical cyclone theory is to provide graduate students and post-doctoral researchers from India and other parts of the world with state-of-the-art knowledge and understanding of tropical cyclone dynamics. It is hoped that this knowledge base will be a useful tool to help these students and post docs understand and improve the forecasts of tropical cyclone genesis and intensification in various parts of the world affected by these storms.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    A recent study by Montgomery et al. (2015) has revisited this issue using a state-of-the-art cloud model and affirms the conclusions of Montgomery et al. (2009).

  2. 2.

    The term “rotating convection” is used in lieu of vortical hot towers (VHTs), which were first described in Hendricks et al. (2004) and later studied in Montgomery et al. (2006a) and Nguyen et al. (2008), among others. To avoid any potential controversy that surrounds the definition of VHTs, the term “rotating convection” will be used throughout the rest of these lectures. Usage of the term VHT has given some the impression that only deep convection (>12 km cloud depth) has strong rotation. However, a recent study by Wissmeier and Smith (2011) showed that even moderate convection (6-12 km depth) in a background rotation rate typical of the undisturbed tropical atmosphere can have a comparable impact on the stretching of low-level relative vorticity in comparison to intense deep convection. Thus, a broad definition is required for studying the aggregate impact of these convective elements on tropical cyclone intensification.

  3. 3.

    It turns out that the number of updrafts that form initially increases as the horizontal resolution increases, but the subsequent evolutionary picture is largely similar.

  4. 4.

    The restoring mechanism for vortex Rossby waves and shear instabilities related thereto is associated with the radial and vertical gradient of dry Ertel potential vorticity of the system-scale vortex.

  5. 5.

    Recent work of Fang and Zhang (2011) has broadly verified the foregoing conclusions, but show a more modest variability in wind-speed intensity due to small perturbations in the initial condition. Aside from numerical model differences and spatial resolution dependencies summarized here, the difference in magnitudes of the intensity fluctuations is believed to be due in part to the retention of liquid water in the more complex microphysics option used in their WRF simulation. Nguyen et al. (2008) attributed the lower intensity found in their own ‘warm-rain’ simulations compared to the pseudo-adiabatic limit to a reduction in the convective instability that results from downdrafts associated with the rain process and to the reduced buoyancy in clouds on account of water loading. Therefore it seems scientifically plausible that the associated water loading in the low-to-mid troposphere that tempers the convective updrafts during intensification would temper also the maximum wind fluctuations in these more complete cloud representations.

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Acknowledgements

Much of the work presented in this article has been conducted and written in collaboration with my close colleague and friend, Professor Roger K. Smith. The foregoing material is a highly abridged version of the review by Montgomery and Smith (2014) and is based on work carried out with our student and research colleagues over the past several years.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Meteorology, Naval Postgraduate School, Monterey, California, USA

    Michael T. Montgomery

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  1. Michael T. Montgomery
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Editors and Affiliations

  1. School of Earth, Ocean and Climate Sciences, Indian Institute of Technology Bhubaneswar, 110016, Hauz Khas, Delhi, India

    U. C. Mohanty

  2. Hurricane Research Division, Atlantic Oceanographic Meteorological Laboratory, NOAA, Rickenbacker Causeway, 4301, 33149, Miami, FL, USA

    Sundararaman G. Gopalakrishnan

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Montgomery, M.T. (2016). Introduction to Hurricane Dynamics: Tropical Cyclone Intensification. In: Mohanty, U.C., Gopalakrishnan, S.G. (eds) Advanced Numerical Modeling and Data Assimilation Techniques for Tropical Cyclone Prediction. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.5822/978-94-024-0896-6_21

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