Abstract Accurate prediction of tropical cyclone (TC) intensity is important but challenging. In this study, a physically based algebraic decay model for predicting TC weakening after landfall over China is introduced, which assumes the TC weakening rate is proportional to the square of the TC maximum near‐surface wind speed. In this algebraic decay model, a decay parameter including the topographic effect by modifying the surface drag coefficient with the normalized terrain height is determined by minimizing the forecast errors for all landfalling TCs over mainland China during 1980–2020. Results show that the algebraic decay model with topographic effect considered performs better than the commonly used exponential decay model for TCs after landfall over mainland China, especially when TCs move further inland. This new model has a time‐dependent decay parameter along the TC track due to the topographic variation, which is different from the previous exponential decay model. 
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                            The Performance of Three Exponential Decay Models in Estimating Tropical Cyclone Intensity Change After Landfall Over China
                        
                    
    
            In this study, the performance of three exponential decay models in estimating intensity change of tropical cyclones (TCs) after landfall over China is evaluated based on the best-track TC data during 1980–2018. Results indicate that the three models evaluated can reproduce the weakening trend of TCs after landfall, but two of them (M1 and M2) tend to overestimate TC intensity and one (M3) tends to overestimate TC intensity in the first 12 h and underestimate TC intensity afterwards. M2 has the best performance with the smallest errors among the three models within 24 h after landfall. M3 has better performance than M1 in the first 20 h after landfall, but its errors increase largely afterwards. M1 and M2 show systematic positive biases in the southeastern China likely due to the fact that they have not explicitly included any topographic effect. M3 has better performance in the southeastern China, where it was originally attempted, but shows negative biases in the eastern China. The relative contributions of different factors, including landfall intensity, translational speed, 850-hPa moist static energy, and topography, to model errors are examined based on classification analyses. Results indicate that the landfall intensity contributes about 18%, translational speed, moist static energy and topography contribute equally about 15% to the model errors. It is strongly suggested that the TC characteristics and the time-dependent decay constant determined by environmental conditions, topography and land cover properties, should be considered in a good exponential decay model of TC weakening after landfall. 
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                            - Award ID(s):
- 1834300
- PAR ID:
- 10318111
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- Frontiers in Earth Science
- Volume:
- 9
- ISSN:
- 2296-6463
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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