Minimum Sea Level Pressure Research Articles

The Impact of Cumulus Parameterization Schemes on the Simulation of Tropical Cyclone “Roanu” Over the Bay of Bengal Using WRF Model

A sensitivity study has been made on cumulus parameterization (CP) schemes of Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) model for the simulation of tropical cyclone Roanu which formed over Bay of Bengal during May 2016. The model was run for 72 hours with different CP schemes such as Kain–Fritsch (KF), Betts-Miller-Janjic (BMJ), Grell–Freit as Ensemble (GFE), Grell 3D Ensemble (G3E) and Grell–Devenyi (GD) Ensemble schemes to study the variation in track, intensity. The landfall position error is minimum for BMJ scheme but the time delayed only 1.5-5 hours for all schemes except GD scheme. The Root Mean Square Error (RMSE) and Mean Absolute Error (MAE) of minimum sea level pressure and maximum wind speed is smaller for BMJ, GFE, GD schemes. The RMSE-MAE of rainfall is minimum for BMJ and G3E schemes. Except GD scheme all the other schemes give the better result.
 Dhaka Univ. J. Sci. 68(1): 87-94, 2020 (January)

The Effect of the Warm Water and Its Weak Negative Feedback on the Rapid Intensification of Typhoon Hato (2017)

Typhoon Hato (2017) went through a rapid intensification (RI) process before making landfall in Zhuhai, Guangdong Province, as the observational data shows. Within 24 hours, its minimum sea level pressure deepened by 35hPa and its maximum sustained wind speed increased by 20m s^-1. According to satellite observations, Hato encountered a large area of warm water and two warm core rings before the RI process, and the average sea surface temperature cooling (SSTC) induced by Hato was only around 0.73℃. Air-sea coupled simulations were implemented to investigate the specific impact of the warm water on its RI process. The results showed that the warm water played an important role by facilitating the RI process by around 20%. Sea surface temperature budget analysis showed that the SSTC induced by mixing mechanism was not obvious due to the warm water. Besides, the cold advection hardly caused any SSTC, either. Therefore, the SSTC induced by Hato was much weaker compared with that in general cases. The negative feedback between ocean and Hato was restrained and abundant heat and moisture were sufficiently supplied to Hato. The warm water helped heat flux increase by around 20%, too. Therefore, the warm water influenced the structure and the intensity of Hato. Although there might be other factors that also participated in the RI process, this study focused on air-sea interaction in tropical cyclone forecast and discussed the impact of warm water on the intensity and structure of a tropical cyclone.

Reexamination of the Tropical Cyclone Wind–Pressure Relationship Based on Pre-1987 Aircraft Data in the Western North Pacific

Abstract The wind–pressure relationship (WPR) for tropical cyclones (TCs) in the western North Pacific is reexamined based on aircraft data, TC best track data, and daily reanalysis data during 1957–87. Minimum sea level pressure (MSLP) was estimated from aircraft reconnaissance, and maximum surface wind speeds (MSWs) were adjusted from the maximum wind speed at flight level. The mean MSLP was found to be higher during 1957–64 than during 1965–87, presumably due to the change in reconnaissance instrumentation and technology, which results in a systematic MSW bias (too high) before 1965 in the China Meteorological Administration (CMA) dataset. Further analyses found that the WPR used in the CMA dataset is more accurate for strong TCs, while the WPR in the Tokyo Regional Specialized Meteorological Center (RSMC) dataset is better for weak TCs after the MSW-RSMC converted by the Dvorak conversion table (1984) and when using the aircraft datasets as a baseline. Several prevailing operational WPRs used in the western North Pacific are reexamined. Results show that the WPR of Knaff and Zehr explains 71% of the variance with a MAE of 9.22 hPa, which represents a significant improvement over other WPRs. Utilizing data after 1965 (a total of 1874 samples), the effects of TC center latitude, size, translation speed, intensification trend, and environmental pressure on the WPRs were examined. Results show that faster-traveling TCs, smaller in size, and located in a higher environmental pressure at lower latitudes, exhibited a higher MSLP for a given MSW. Meanwhile, the latitude, translational speed, and the environmental pressure produces additional improvement, but the TC size and intensity change added only a little skill to the WPR equation.

Aerodynamic Performance and Wind-Induced Responses of Large Wind Turbine Systems with Meso-Scale Typhoon Effects

The theoretical system of existing civil engineering typhoon models is too simplified and the simulation accuracy is very low. Therefore, in this work a meso-scale weather forecast model (WRF) based on the non-static Euler equation model was introduced to simulate typhoon “Nuri” with high spatial and temporal resolution, focusing on the comparison of wind direction and wind intensity characteristics before, during and after the landing of the typhoon. Moreover, the effectiveness of the meso-scale typhoon “Nuri” simulation was verified by a comparison between the track of the typhoon center based on minimum sea level pressure and the measured track. In this paper, the aerodynamic performance of large wind turbines under typhoon loads is studied using WRF and CFD nesting technology. A 5 MW wind turbine located in a wind power plant on the southeast coast of China has been chosen as the research object. The average and fluctuating wind pressure distributions as well as airflow around the tower body and eddy distribution on blade and tower surface were compared. A dynamic and time-historical analysis of wind-induced responses under different stop positions was implemented by considering the finite element complete transient method. The influence of the stop position on the wind-induced responses and wind fluttering factor of the system were analyzed. Finally, under a typhoon process, the most unfavorable stop position of the large wind turbine was concluded. The results demonstrated that the internal force and wind fluttering factor of the tower body increased significantly under the typhoon effect. The wind-induced response of the blade closest to the tower body was affected mostly. The wind fluttering factor of this blade was increased by 35%. It was concluded from the analysis that the large wind turbine was stopped during the typhoon. The most unfavorable stop position was at the complete overlapping of the lower blade and the tower body (Condition 1). The safety redundancy reached the maximum when the upper blade overlapped with the tower body completely (Condition 5). Therefore, it is suggested that during typhoons the blade of the wind turbine be rotated to Condition 5.

The impact of Coriolis approximations on the environmental sensitivity of idealized extratropical cyclones

The precise influence of climate change on extratropical cyclone genesis and evolution is an important (but as yet unsolved) problem, given their physical and economic impact on a large portion of the planet’s population. However, extratropical cyclones are also affected by the competing influences of forcing mechanisms at a wide range of spatial scales, complicating the problem. While the advent of idealized numerical modeling has allowed great strides in addressing these complications and achieving some qualitative consensus in the literature, there is still some quantitative disagreement about response magnitude and where local maxima and minima in the response may be located. Thus, the advantages inherent in the variety of idealized numerical modeling methods used to address this problem are also a drawback, as it can be difficult to draw one-to-one comparisons across experiments. Although the effects of particular model architecture choices such as microphysical and cumulus schemes are well-documented, others are less understood. In this study, we examine the role of Coriolis approximations by comparing a new set of ETC sensitivity experiments using a linear β-plane approximation to an existing set of extratropical sensitivity experiments using a constant f-plane approximation. ETCs within the new β-plane experiment are found to generally decrease in strength with temperature, as measured by both minimum sea level pressure and maximum eddy kinetic energy (EKE). A small increase in EKE is observed at the warmest temperatures, likely due to diabatic influences disrupting flow within the warm conveyor belt. While seemingly contradictory to the previous f-plane results, the two experiments are instead found to be qualitatively similar upon further inspection, with an offset of approximately 8 K. This offset is primarily due to the Coriolis approximations, although the initial stability profile (affected by the Coriolis approximation) has a marginal influence.

Numerical simulations and comparative analysis for two types of storm surges in the Bohai Sea using a coupled atmosphere-ocean model

The Bohai Sea is extremely susceptible to storm surges induced by extratropical storms and tropical cyclones in nearly every season. In order to relieve the impacts of storm surge disasters on structures and human lives in coastal regions, it is very important to understand the occurring of the severe storm surges. The previous research is mostly restricted to a single type of storm surge caused by extratropical storm or tropical cyclone. In present paper, a coupled atmosphere-ocean model is developed to study the storm surges induced by two types of extreme weather conditions. Two special cases happened in the Bohai Sea are simulated successively. The wind intensity and minimum sea-level pressure derived from the Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) model agree well with the observed data. The computed time series of water level obtained from the Regional Ocean Modeling System (ROMS) also are in good agreement with the tide gauge observations. The structures of the wind fields and average currents for two types of storm surges are analyzed and compared. The results of coupled model are compared with those from the uncoupled model. The case studies indicate that the wind field and structure of the ocean surface current have great differences between extratropical storm surge and typhoon storm surge. The magnitude of storm surge in the Bohai Sea is shown mainly determined by the ocean surface driving force, but greatly affected by the coastal geometry and bathymetry.

Performance assessment of WRF model in simulating the very severe cyclonic storm “TITLI” in the Bay of Bengal: A case study

The present study has been conducted to assess the performance of the Weather Research and Forecasting – Advanced Research (WRF-ARW, hereinafter named as WRF) model in simulating the very severe cyclonic storm (VSCS) “Titli” which formed over the Bay of Bengal during 08–13 October, 2018. The simulated meteorological variables viz. 10-m wind vectors, surface latent heat flux, rainfall, track and intensity based on minimum sea level pressure (MSLP), maximum sustained surface wind (MSW) are assessed to evaluate the model performance. The results are compared with India Meteorological Department (IMD) observations along with verification analyses [FiNaL analysis (FNL)]. The model simulated 24- h accumulation of rainfall verification is carried out by using the Method for Object based Diagnostic Evaluation (MODE) tool of Model Evaluation Tool Version 8 (MET-V8). The various statistical skill scores obtained from the MODE clearly indicates that the overall performance of WRF model in predicting the rainfall is reasonably good, mainly at lower forecast length (36–60 hr). The intensity and spatial distribution of rainfall are well matched with the verified analysis as well as with the Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM) observations. The analysis of maximum latent heat flux in the region of strongest surface wind suggests that the circulation is maintained due to increased transport of heat and moisture from the ocean. The track error analysis shows more error during the model initialization, which gradually decreases with the advance of forecast time. Efficacy of the WRF model in simulating the tropical cyclone (TC) is very distinct from the present study.

Effect of background error tuning on assimilating radar radial velocity observations for the forecast of hurricane tracks and intensities

AbstractThe background error covariance is an important component in data assimilation systems, which largely dominates the error correlations between different analysis variables. This study aimed to assess the impact of the determination of the background error length and variance scale factors on the track and intensity forecast of hurricane systems for radar radial velocity (Vr) data assimilation. To test the sensitivity of the background error length scale and variance scale, multiple data assimilation analyses were performed using a 3D variational data assimilation method with a parameter‐sweeping strategy for the case of Hurricane Ike (2008) by varying the decorrelation length scale (LEN_SCALING) and the variance (VAR_SCALING) of the background error step by step. It is shown that, in radar Vr data assimilation, generally smaller variance scale and length scale factors tend to improve the prediction of the hurricane track. Setting both VAR_SCALING and LEN_SCALING equivalent to 0.4 provides a better track than other combinations. In particular, the impact of the variance scale factor on the track forecasts is larger than that of the length scale factor. There is no direct impact of tuning variance scales and length scales on the forecast intensity for the first few forecast hours. Tuning length scale factors less than 0.4 provides smaller forecast errors of minimum sea level pressure and maximum surface wind with increasing forecast lead time.

Extratropical Transition of Hurricane Irene (2011) in a Changing Climate

Abstract Tropical cyclones (TCs) undergoing strong extratropical transition (ET) can produce adverse societal impacts in areas that rarely experience direct TC impacts. This, in conjunction with projected environmental changes in climatological ET regions, motivates the investigation of possible future changes in ET characteristics. We utilize a small ensemble of numerical model simulations to examine how warming affects the ET of Hurricane Irene. To assess the effects of climate change, we use the pseudo-global warming method in which thermodynamic changes, derived from an ensemble of 20 CMIP5 GCMs, are applied to analyzed initial and lateral boundary conditions of model simulations. We find increased storm intensity in the future simulations, both in reduced minimum sea level pressure and strengthened 10-m wind speed. Storm-centered composites indicate a strengthening of tropospheric potential vorticity near the center of Irene, consistent with enhanced latent heat release. The results also demonstrate that Irene’s precipitation in the warmed simulations increases at a rate that exceeds Clausius–Clapeyron scaling, owing to enhanced moisture flux convergence and an additional contribution from increased surface evaporation. The duration of the transition process increased in the warmed simulations due to a weakened midtropospheric trough and reduced vertical wind shear and meridional SST gradient with a slower northward translation. These results suggest that transitioning storms may exhibit an increased ability to extend TC-like conditions poleward, and motivates additional research.

Researching the Variation of Typhoon Intensities Under Climate Change in Vietnam: A Case Study of Typhoon Lekima, 2007

Most of the typhoons that impact coastal regions of Vietnam occur from the north to the central part, between June and November. As a result of global warming, typhoon intensities are expected to increase. Therefore, an assessment of various typhoon strengths is essential. In this study, Typhoon Lekima, which hit Vietnam in 2007, was simulated by weather research and forecast models, using ensemble simulation methodology. Reproductive results of the typhoon intensity are similar to actual estimated values from the Japan Meteorological Agency. Also, the variation of typhoon intensities and heavy rainfall in future climate scenarios was investigated using numerical simulations based on pseudo global warming conditions, constructed using fifth-phase results of the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project multi-model global warming experiments. Simulation results of five Pseudo Global Warming (PGW_FF) models indicate that intensities of the typhoon will be magnified in future climate. The minimum sea level pressure of typhoons similar to Typhoon Lekima in the future will increase from 8 hPa to 9 hPa, and the spatial distribution of maximum wind speed and tracked direction will move towards the southern regions. Total precipitation will significantly increase for a maximum of six hours, and the spatial distribution of heavy rain caused by typhoons will shift from the north to the southwest of Vietnam. In the future, simulated results showed that global warming correlates strongly with a significant increase in typhoon intensity and heavy rain.

Composite analysis of the tropopause inversion layer in extratropical baroclinic waves

Abstract. The evolution of the tropopause inversion layer (TIL) during cyclogenesis in the North Atlantic storm track is investigated using operational meteorological analysis data (Integrated Forecast System from the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts). For this a total of 130 cyclones have been analysed during the months August through October between 2010 and 2014 over the North Atlantic. Their paths of migration along with associated flow features in the upper troposphere and lower stratosphere (UTLS) have been tracked based on the mean sea level pressure field. Subsets of the 130 cyclones have been used for composite analysis using minimum sea level pressure to filter the cyclones based on their strength. The composite structure of the TIL strength distribution in connection with the overall UTLS flow strongly resembles the structure of the individual cyclones. Key results are that a strong dipole in TIL strength forms in regions of cyclonic wrap-up of UTLS air masses of different origin and isentropic potential vorticity. These air masses are associated with the cyclonic rotation of the underlying cyclones. The maximum values of enhanced static stability above the tropopause occur north and northeast of the cyclone centre, vertically aligned with outflow regions of strong updraft and cloud formation up to the tropopause, which are situated in anticyclonic flow patterns in the upper troposphere. These regions are co-located with a maximum of vertical shear of the horizontal wind. The strong wind shear within the TIL results in a local minimum of Richardson numbers, representing the possibility for turbulent instability and potential mixing (or air mass exchange) within regions of enhanced static stability in the lowermost stratosphere.

A High-Resolution Mesoscale Model Approach to Reproduce Super Typhoon Maysak (2015) Over Northwestern Pacific Ocean

In this study, an attempt is made to simulate super typhoon Maysak, which occurred over the northwest Pacific Ocean in 2015 and made landfall on the Philippines coast. The aim of the present study is to assess the various atmospheric conditions during the life cycle of Maysak to explore the associated dynamics and behavior over the ocean. For this purpose, the advanced research core of the weather research and forecasting (WRF) mesoscale model is adopted. The model is simulated using 27-km horizontal grid resolution with National Centers for Environmental Prediction global Final analyses (FNL) initial conditions. The relevant parameters, namely storm track, intensity, wind–vorticity, rainfall, minimum sea level pressure, relative humidity, and maximum reflectivity etc., were analyzed. The model is able to perform reasonably well when available observations over the region compared with the simulated values of these parameters. The present study is able to demonstrate the capability of WRF in simulating and predicting the relevant characteristic features of typhoons over the northwest Pacific Ocean region through the case of Maysak.

Uncertainty Propagation in Coupled Atmosphere–Wave–Ocean Prediction System: A Study of Hurricane Earl (2010)

This study focuses on understanding the evolution of Hurricane Earl (2010) with respect to random perturbations in the storm’s initial strength, size, and asymmetry in wind distribution. We rely on the Unified Wave Interface-Coupled Model (UWIN-CM), a fully coupled atmosphere–wave–ocean system to generate a storm realization ensemble, and use polynomial chaos (PC) expansions to build surrogate models for time evolution of both the maximum wind speed and minimum sea level pressure in Earl. The resulting PC surrogate models provide statistical insights on probability distributions of model responses throughout the simulation time span. Statistical analysis of rapid intensification (RI) suggests that initial perturbations having intensified and counterclockwise-rotated winds are more likely to undergo RI. In addition, for the range of initial conditions considered RI seems mostly sensitive to azimuthally averaged maximum wind speed and asymmetry orientation, rather than storm size and asymmetry magnitude; this is consistent with global sensitivity analysis of PC surrogate models. Finally, we combine initial condition perturbations with a stochastic kinetic energy backscatter scheme (SKEBS) forcing in the UWIN-CM simulations and conclude that the storm tracks are substantially influenced by the SKEBS forcing perturbations, whereas the perturbations in initial conditions alone had only limited impact on the storm-track forecast.

The Role of Polygonal Eyewalls in Rapid Intensification of Typhoon Megi (2010)

Abstract High-resolution numerical experiments for Typhoon Megi (2010) in the western North Pacific are conducted using the Advanced Research version of the Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) Model to understand the mechanisms of rapid intensification (RI). With a dynamically initialized vortex, sensitivity experiments are carried out focusing on the planetary boundary layer (PBL) and the following microphysics schemes: WRF single-moment 6-class (WSM6) and WRF double-moment 6-class (WDM6) microphysics with Yonsei University, Mellor–Yamada–Janjić (MYJ), and Mellor–Yamada–Nakanishi–Niino (MYNN) 2.5-level (MN2.5) and 3.0-level (MN3) PBL schemes. The largest differences are found between WSM6-MN3 and WDM6-MN3, and we therefore examine RI mechanisms based on the results of these experiments. Prior to RI, WDM6-MN3 shows a drier environment and stronger downdrafts in the lower troposphere than in WSM6-MN3. As a result, during the RI period, WSM6-MN3 (WDM6-MN3) significantly intensifies with the minimum sea level pressure decreasing by 51 (29) hPa and the maximum surface wind increasing by 28 (12) m s−1 in 24 h. In both experiments, the maximum values of surface heat fluxes, potential vorticity (PV), radial absolute angular momentum advection, inertial stability, supergradient wind, and convective bursts inside the radius of maximum winds are frequently observed at each vertex of polygonal eyewalls in the lower troposphere. In particular, WSM6-MN3 exhibits more convective cells inside the inner-core region, a more persistent and thicker polygonal eyewall in the lower troposphere, and a more robust vertical structure of hydrometeors and vertical velocity than WDM6-MN3. This study suggests that within the inner-core region, polygonal eyewalls like WSM6-MN3 provide favorable conditions for RI.

Simulation of the effects of sea-salt aerosols on the structure and precipitation of a developed tropical cyclone

The Weather Research and Forecasting model coupled with Chemistry version 3.5.1 is used to investigate the effects of sea-salt aerosols on the tropical cyclone “Rammasun” through three experiments of varying sea-salt emission intensity. The results show that the sea-salt aerosol concentration has a negligible effect on the tropical cyclone track. When the tropical cyclone develops into the mature phase, the minimum sea-level pressure in the control and high emission intensity experiments is 3–4 hPa lower than that in the low intensity experiment. The cloud condensation concentration in the tropical cyclone increases with the growth of sea-salt aerosol emission concentration. The average vertically integrated cloud-condensation nuclei in the low, control and high emission experiments is 3.77 × 104 cm−2, 4.36 × 104 cm−2 and 4.85 × 104 cm−2, respectively. The higher sea-salt aerosol emission leads to a more obvious warm core structure and more latent heat release, which increases the horizontal velocity, convection and convective precipitation. When the tropical cyclone is in the mature phase, the peak value of convective precipitation in the low, control and high emission experiments is 50 mm/h, 52 mm/h and 55 mm/h, respectively. Finally, the higher sea-salt aerosol emission concentration leads to the peak precipitation shifted toward the tropical cyclone center.

Spatial Distribution and Seasonal Variation of Explosive Cyclones over the North Atlantic

Spatial distribution and seasonal variation of explosive cyclones (ECs) over the North Atlantic from October 2000 to September 2016 are investigated using the reanalysis data of Final Analysis (FNL), Mean Sea Level Pressure (MSLP) and Optimum Interpolation (OI) Sea Surface Temperature (SST) provided by the National Centers for Environmental Prediction (NCEP), the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF) and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), respectively. Considering the meridional distribution of ECs and 10-m height wind field associated with the ECs, the definition of EC given by Yoshida and Asuma (2004) is modified. It is found that the ECs occurred mainly in four regions during winter season, namely, North America continent (NAC), the Northwest Atlantic (NWA), the North-central Atlantic (NCA), and the Northeast Atlantic (NEA), depending on the spatial distribution of EC’s maximum deepening rate of central sea level pressure (SLP). According to the magnitude of maximum deepening rate, the trend of EC numbers basically decrease with the increase of EC’s maximum deepening rate over the North Atlantic during the whole time period. Over the North Atlantic basin, for monthly statistics, the NEA, NCA, and NWA cyclones occur mainly in December, from December to March, and from January to February, respectively. NWA, NCA and NEA cyclones in winter are associated with low-level baroclinicity, both low-level baroclinicity and upper-level forcing and upper-level forcing, respectively. According to monthly variation, the averaged maximum deepening rate of central SLP firstly increases and then decreases from July to June. Overall, the distribution of ECs’ tracks is basically in the southwest-northeast direction. During winter circulation stage (from October to May), the averaged maximum deepening rate of central SLP and the averaged minimum central SLP of ECs decrease, and the averaged explosive-deepening duration of ECs shortens from west to east over the North Atlantic basin. During summer circulation stage (from June to September), the number of ECs is far less than that of winter circulation. NCA cyclones are the lowest in the average minimum central SLP of ECs, and the longest in the average explosive- deepening duration of ECs. NEA cyclones are the strongest in the average maximum deepening rate of central SLP.

Capturing Size and Intensity Changes of Hurricanes Irma and Maria (2017) from Polar-Orbiting Satellite Microwave Radiometers

Abstract A recently refined hurricane warm-core retrieval algorithm was applied to data from multiple polar-orbiting satellites that carry the Advanced Technology Microwave Sounder (ATMS) and the Advanced Microwave Sounding Unit-A (AMSU-A) to examine the diurnal variability of the warm cores of Hurricanes Irma and Maria. These hurricanes occurred during the 2017 hyperactive Atlantic hurricane season. Compared with data gathered by dropsondes within 100–1700 km of Hurricanes Irma and Harvey, the means and standard deviations of the differences between ATMS-derived and dropsonde-measured temperature profiles were less than 0.7 and 1 K, respectively, in the vertical layer between ~180 and 750 hPa. The temporal evolutions of the ATMS-derived and AMSU-A-derived maximum warm-core temperature anomalies followed more closely that of the minimum mean sea level pressure and slightly less closely that of the maximum sustained wind. The radii of the ATMS-derived warm cores at 4 and 6 K compared favorably with the 34- and 50-kt-wind radii, respectively, of Hurricane Irma (1 kt = 0.51 m s−1). The vertical extent of the warm core toward lower levels increased with increasing intensity when Hurricane Irma experienced a strong intensification because of an enhanced latent heat release associated with diabatic processes. The tropical cyclone (TC) inner cores at upper-tropospheric levels (~250 hPa) were characterized by a single-peaked diurnal cycle with a maximum around midnight. This warm-core cycle may be an important element of TC dynamics and may have relevance to TC structural and intensity changes.

Ingesting microwave sounder radiances for improvement in track forecast of cyclone Vardah

Ingesting microwave sounder radiances from SAPHIR of Megha–Tropiques has been attempted. A local ensemble transform Kalman filter assimilation algorithm is adopted to ingest radiances directly into the ARW–WRF model. The forward radiative transfer calculations were surrogated with an artificial neural network (ANN) based on the fast radiative transfer model. Raining pixels from the observations were removed using a threshold test on the observed brightness temperatures. Following this, corrections of both scan and air mass biases were accomplished using a predictor-based approach. The bias characteristics of each channel were calculated from ab initio clear-sky profiles from European reanalysis Interim reanalysis data. The vertical localization functions required for the radiance observations were chosen to be similar to the weighting function of the respective channel. The overall performance of the SAPHIR radiance assimilation in terms of the average error over the forecast period showed a positive impact on the cyclone track prediction when compared with the control run and the best track data from the Indian Meteorological Department. The effect of assimilation is observed to improve the minimum sea-level pressure values, whereas the improvements in the maximum sustainable wind speed are not significant. An assimilation experiment was set up to ingest channel-wise radiances independently, and it was concluded that the assimilation of channel 5 radiances results in the least error in the track forecast. The effect of using ensembles generated by initial perturbations in (i) temperature and (ii) both temperature and humidity was studied. The ensembles generated from perturbations in both humidity and temperature resulted in a better 72-h track compared with perturbation of only one of them. The overall performance of the assimilation of all the six channels for both 48- and 72-h forecast lead times showed a considerable improvement against the control run without any assimilation. Furthermore, the results show a degradation of the forecast of cyclone track in the first 24 h. The sensitivity toward channel-wise radiances showed a positive impact on the precipitation forecast when compared with global precipitation mission rainfall estimates. Threat and bias scores were used for quantitative assessment of precipitation, which indicated improvements in skill after assimilating all six channel radiances from SAPHIR. Finally, a sequential assimilation experiment was set up, and the improvements in the analysis fields were computed.

Influences of the Monsoon Trough and Arabian Heat Low on Summer Rainfall over the United Arab Emirates

Abstract The factors responsible for rare summertime rainfall over portions of the United Arab Emirates (UAE), which have not been previously explored in detail, are elucidated with the Climate Forecast System Reanalysis and WRF mesoscale model simulations. The simulations show associations between active phases of the southwest Asian monsoon and intensification of the Arabian heat low, leading up to UAE rainfall events. Variability in the location and strength of the Arabian heat low circulation, which differs from the static portrayal in climatological minimum sea level pressure (MSLP), can affect the development of deep convection over the UAE. Analysis of the vorticity equation for a two-day case study period confirms that convergence is solely responsible for the spinup and maintenance of the primary heat low circulation. Convergence is also responsible for the spinup of a separate cyclonic circulation over the eastern UAE, which propagates offshore to the Arabian Gulf during morning hours. This cyclonic circulation advects moist air onshore over the western UAE, and deep convection follows from inland horizontal convective rolls and interaction with the approaching sea-breeze front. The development of widespread deep convection is shown to be most favorable during the decay phase of the Arabian heat low, when the preconditioned moist air is not replaced by drier continental flow, and the vertical profiles of temperature and moisture are also more favorable. Three other rainfall cases are briefly discussed to illustrate how the strength and geographic position of the Arabian heat low can affect rainfall characteristics over the UAE.

Reducing TC Position Uncertainty in an Ensemble Data Assimilation and Prediction System: A Case Study of Typhoon Fanapi (2010)

Abstract Ensemble-based data assimilation (EDA) has been used for tropical cyclone (TC) analysis and prediction with some success. However, the TC position spread determines the structure of the TC-related background error covariance and affects the performance of EDA. With an idealized experiment and a real TC case study, it is demonstrated that observations in the core region cannot be optimally assimilated when the TC position spread is large. To minimize the negative impact from large position uncertainty, a TC-centered EDA approach is implemented in the Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) Model–local ensemble transform Kalman filter (WRF-LETKF) assimilation system. The impact of TC-centered EDA on TC analysis and prediction of Typhoon Fanapi (2010) is evaluated. Using WRF Model nested grids with 4-km grid spacing in the innermost domain, the focus is on EDA using dropsonde data from the Impact of Typhoons on the Ocean in the Pacific field campaign. The results show that the TC structure in the background mean state is improved and that unrealistically large ensemble spread can be alleviated. The characteristic horizontal scale in the background error covariance is smaller and narrower compared to those derived from the conventional EDA approach. Storm-scale corrections are improved using dropsonde data, which is more favorable for TC development. The analysis using the TC-centered EDA is in better agreement with independent observations. The improved analysis ameliorates model shock and improves the track forecast during the first 12 h and landfall at 72 h. The impact on intensity prediction is mixed with a better minimum sea level pressure and overestimated peak winds.