Hitting time of rapid intensification onset in hurricane-like vortices
Abstract
Predicting tropical cyclone (TC), rapid intensification (RI) is an important yet challenging task in current weather forecast due to our incomplete understanding of TC nonlinear processes. This study examines the variability of RI onset, including the probability of RI occurrence and the timing of RI onset, using a low-order stochastic model for TC development. Defining RI onset as the first hitting time for a given subset in the TC-scale state space, we quantify the probability of the occurrence of RI onset and the distribution of the timing of RI onset for a range of initial conditions and model parameters. Based on asymptotic analysis for stochastic differential equations, our results show that RI onset occurs later, along with a larger variance of RI onset timing, for weaker vortex initial condition and stronger noise amplitude. In the small noise limit, RI onset probability approaches one and the RI onset timing has less uncertainty (i.e., a smaller variance), consistent with observation of TC development under idealized environment. Our theoretical results are also verified against Monte Carlo simulations and compared with explicit results for a general one-dimensional system, thus providing new insights into the variability of RI onset and helping better quantify the uncertainties of RI variability for practical applications.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Pub Defense Publication
- Publication Date
- Sep 01, 2021
- Source ID
- 10.1063/5.0062119
Entities
People
- Chanh Kieu
- Dimitrios Sakellariou
- Mahashweta Patra
- Wai-Tong Louis Fan
Organizations
- Indiana University
- Office of Naval Research