skip to main content
US FlagAn official website of the United States government
dot gov icon
Official websites use .gov
A .gov website belongs to an official government organization in the United States.
https lock icon
Secure .gov websites use HTTPS
A lock ( lock ) or https:// means you've safely connected to the .gov website. Share sensitive information only on official, secure websites.


Title: Sensitivity of Tropical Cyclone Intensity Variability to Different Stochastic Parameterization Methods
Proper representations of stochastic processes in tropical cyclone (TC) models are critical for capturing TC intensity variability in real-time applications. In this study, three different stochastic parameterization methods, namely, random initial conditions, random parameters, and random forcing, are used to examine TC intensity variation and uncertainties. It is shown that random forcing produces the largest variability of TC intensity at the maximum intensity equilibrium and the fastest intensity error growth during TC rapid intensification using a fidelity-reduced dynamical model and a cloud-resolving model (CM1). In contrast, the random initial condition tends to be more effective during the early stage of TC development but becomes less significant at the mature stage. For the random parameter method, it is found that this approach depends sensitively on how the model parameters are randomized. Specifically, randomizing model parameters at the initial time appears to produce much larger effects on TC intensity variability and error growth compared to randomizing model parameters every model time step, regardless of how large the random noise amplitude is. These results highlight the importance of choosing a random representation scheme to capture proper TC intensity variability in practical applications.  more » « less
Award ID(s):
1855417
PAR ID:
10344730
Author(s) / Creator(s):
; ;
Date Published:
Journal Name:
Frontiers in Earth Science
Volume:
10
ISSN:
2296-6463
Format(s):
Medium: X
Sponsoring Org:
National Science Foundation
More Like this
  1. null (Ed.)
    Abstract This study examines the variability of tropical cyclone (TC) intensity associated with stochastic forcings at the maximum potential intensity (PI) equilibrium. By representing TC intensity as an Itô diffusion process in the framework of TC-scale dynamics, we show from both theoretical and numerical analyses that there exists an invariant intensity distribution whose variance is proportional to the variances of stochastic forcings. This result provides further evidence that TC dynamics possess an intrinsic variability that prevents the TC absolute intensity errors in numerical models from being reduced below an arbitrarily small threshold. Analysis of the invariant intensity distribution at the PI limit reveals also that the stochastic forcing component associated with tangential wind and the warm-core anomaly in the TC central region have the largest contribution to TC intensity variability. These results suggest that future development of stochastic representation in TC models should focus on the tangential wind and thermodynamic structure to capture proper TC intensity random fluctuations. 
    more » « less
  2. Abstract This study examines the possible dependence of tropical cyclone (TC) development on the initial winds inside the radius of maximum wind (RMW) through ensemble axisymmetric numerical simulations. Results demonstrate that the vortex with higher initial winds inside the RMW favor larger surface enthalpy flux and thus faster moistening and earlier convective organization in the inner core, significantly shortening the initial spinup period. Higher inertial stability associated with higher winds inside the RMW implies higher eyewall‐heating efficiency, giving rise to higher intensification rate in the subsequent intensification stage but little difference in the steady‐state intensity. The results are confirmed with several sensitivity experiments using different model parameters and three‐dimensional simulations using the same model and configuration. The findings from this study strongly suggest that the realistic representation of the initial inner‐core winds is key to skillful TC intensity forecasts by numerical models and routine high‐resolution observations of the inner‐core wind structure are urged for improving TC intensity forecasts. 
    more » « less
  3. Abstract Accurate prediction of tropical cyclone (TC) intensity is quite challenging due to multiple competing processes among the TC internal dynamics and the environment. Most previous studies have evaluated the environmental effects on TC intensity change from both internal dynamics and external influence. This study quantifies the environmental effects on TC intensity change using a simple dynamically based dynamical system (DBDS) model recently developed. In this simple model, the environmental effects are uniquely represented by a ventilation parameterB, which can be expressed as multiplicative of individual ventilation parameters of the corresponding environmental effects. Their individual ventilation parameters imply their relative importance to the bulk environmental ventilation effect and thus to the TC intensity change. Six environmental factors known to affect TC intensity change are evaluated in the DBDS model using machine learning approaches with the best track data for TCs over the North Atlantic, central, eastern, and western North Pacific and the Statistical Hurricane Intensity Prediction Scheme (SHIPS) dataset during 1982–2021. Results show that the deep-layer vertical wind shear (VWS) is the dominant ventilation factor to reduce the intrinsic TC intensification rate or to drive the TC weakening, with its ventilation parameter ranging between 0.5 and 0.8 when environmental VWS between 200 and 850 hPa is larger than 8 m s−1. Other environmental factors are generally secondary, with their respective ventilation parameters over 0.8. An interesting result is the strong dependence of the environmental effects on the stage of TC development. 
    more » « less
  4. Abstract Satellite precipitation products, as all quantitative estimates, come with some inherent degree of uncertainty. To associate a quantitative value of the uncertainty to each individual estimate, error modeling is necessary. Most of the error models proposed so far compute the uncertainty as a function of precipitation intensity only, and only at one specific spatiotemporal scale. We propose a spectral error model that accounts for the neighboring space–time dynamics of precipitation into the uncertainty quantification. Systematic distortions of the precipitation signal and random errors are characterized distinctively in every frequency–wavenumber band in the Fourier domain, to accurately characterize error across scales. The systematic distortions are represented as a deterministic space–time linear filtering term. The random errors are represented as a nonstationary additive noise. The spectral error model is applied to the IMERG multisatellite precipitation product, and its parameters are estimated empirically through a system identification approach using the GV-MRMS gauge–radar measurements as reference (“truth”) over the eastern United States. The filtering term is found to be essentially low-pass (attenuating the fine-scale variability). While traditional error models attribute most of the error variance to random errors, it is found here that the systematic filtering term explains 48% of the error variance at the native resolution of IMERG. This fact confirms that, at high resolution, filtering effects in satellite precipitation products cannot be ignored, and that the error cannot be represented as a purely random additive or multiplicative term. An important consequence is that precipitation estimates derived from different sources shall not be expected to automatically have statistically independent errors. Significance StatementSatellite precipitation products are nowadays widely used for climate and environmental research, water management, risk analysis, and decision support at the local, regional, and global scales. For all these applications, knowledge about the accuracy of the products is critical for their usability. However, products are not systematically provided with a quantitative measure of the uncertainty associated with each individual estimate. Various parametric error models have been proposed for uncertainty quantification, mostly assuming that the uncertainty is only a function of the precipitation intensity at the pixel and time of interest. By projecting satellite precipitation fields and their retrieval errors into the Fourier frequency–wavenumber domain, we show that we can explicitly take into account the neighboring space–time multiscale dynamics of precipitation and compute a scale-dependent uncertainty. 
    more » « less
  5. Abstract Previous studies have investigated how the environmental vertical wind shear (VWS) may trigger the asymmetric structure in an initially axisymmetric tropical cyclone (TC) vortex and how TC intensity changes in response. In this study, the possible effect of the initial vortex asymmetric structure on the TC intensity change in response to an imposed environmental VWS is investigated based on idealized full‐physics model simulations. Results show that the effect of the asymmetric structure in the initial TC vortex can either enhance or suppress the initial weakening of the TC in response to the imposed environmental VWS. When the initial asymmetric structure is in phase of the VWS‐induced asymmetric structure, the TC weakening will be enhanced and vice versa. Our finding calls for realistic representation of initial TC asymmetric structure in numerical weather prediction models and observations to better resolve the asymmetric structure in TCs. 
    more » « less