Abstract
Recent (past ~15 years) advances in our understanding of tropical cyclone (TC) intensity change processes using aircraft data are summarized here. The focus covers a variety of spatiotemporal scales, regions of the TC inner core, and stages of the TC lifecycle, from preformation to major hurricane status. Topics covered include (1) characterizing TC structure and its relationship to intensity change; (2) TC intensification in vertical shear; (3) planetary boundary layer (PBL) processes and air–sea interaction; (4) upper-level warm core structure and evolution; (5) genesis and development of weak TCs; and (6) secondary eyewall formation/eyewall replacement cycles (SEF/ERC). Gaps in our airborne observational capabilities are discussed, as are new observing technologies to address these gaps and future directions for airborne TC intensity change research.
Highlights
Tropical cyclones (TCs) plague coastal communities around the world, threatening millions of lives and causing many billions of dollars in damage to infrastructure
Following the TDR composite methodology described in [21], the response of TC structure to environmental vertical shear was investigated in [30]. Their analysis showed many of the vortex-scale characteristics seen in previous studies for TCs of hurricane strength encountering moderate to strong shear (850–200 hPa shear > 7 m s−1); e.g., downshear tilt, a precipitation maximum downshear left, low-level inflow downshear right (DSR) and downshear left (DSL), and midlevel inflow upshear left (USL) and upshear right (USR; Figure 3)
In their TDR composite study of eyewall slope and its relationship to the vertical shear, Hazelton et al [26] identified a statistically significant difference in the slope of the reflectivity surface relative to the slope of the angular momentum (M) surface in the DSL and USL quadrants for intensifying vs. steady-state TCs (Figure 9)
Summary
Tropical cyclones (TCs) plague coastal communities around the world, threatening millions of lives and causing many billions of dollars in damage to infrastructure. A great deal of resources has been dedicated on a global scale to improving spaceborne, airborne, and ground-based observing systems [5] that monitor TC position, intensity, and structure Data from these observing systems are key as inputs to the numerical model guidance crucial in making forecasts of TC hazards. Recent years have seen increasing capacity for airborne sampling of TCs internationally, with many field campaigns primarily concentrated in the west Pacific basin These include the Dropwindsonde Observations for Typhoon Surveillance near the Taiwan Region program (DOTSTAR; [14]); typhoon reconnaissance missions flown by the Hong Kong Observatory [15,16]; the Experiment on Typhoon Intensity Change in Coastal Area (EXOTICCA; [17]) in China; and the Tropical cyclone-Pacific Asian Research Campaign for Improvement of Intensity estimates/forecasts (T-PARCII; [18]) in Japan. Provide a discussion of future directions, including an assessment of continued observational gaps in airborne TC data collection, new observing technologies, and new research directions
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