The Role of Inner-Core Moisture in Tropical Cyclone Predictability and Practical Forecast Skill

Abstract

Errors in tropical cyclone intensity forecasts are dominated by initial-condition errors out to at least a few days. Initialization errors are usually thought of in terms of position and intensity, but here it is shown that growth of intensity error is at least as sensitive to the specification of inner-core moisture as to that of the wind field. Implications of this finding for tropical cyclone observational strategies and for overall predictability of storm intensity are discussed.

Document Details

Document Type
Pub Defense Publication
Publication Date
Jul 01, 2017
Source ID
10.1175/jas-d-17-0008.1

Entities

People

  • Fuqing Zhang
  • Kerry Emanuel

Organizations

  • Massachusetts Institute of Technology
  • Office of Naval Research
  • Pennsylvania State University

Tags

Fields of Study

  • Environmental science

Readers

  • Adaptive Control and Estimation with Uncertainty in Dynamic Systems.
  • Ocean-Atmosphere Mesoscale Modeling, Data Assimilation, and Flux Boundary Layers