Tropical Cyclone Inner-Core Prediction

Principal Investigator:
Joe Cione (AOML/HRD)

Collaborating PIs:

John Kaplan (AOML/HRD)

Jason Dunion (HRD/CIMAS)

Eric Uhlhorn (HRD/CIMAS)

Rick Lumpkin(AOML/PhOD)

Bob Molinari(AOML/OCD)

Nick Shay (UMiami/RSMAS)

Mark DeMaria (NESDIS/CIRA)

Chelle Gentemann (Remote Sensing Systems)

Objectives:

Gain an improved understanding of how atmospheric boundary layer upper ocean interactive processes moderate hurricane structure and potentially control changes in storm intensity.
To develop an improved understanding of how TC-induced surface forcing impacts oceanic and atmospheric boundary layer structure directly beneath the storm.
To test teh short and near-term predictability (0 - 48 h) of the TC-inner core near-surface thermodynamic environment.

Recent Accomplishments:

Successful development of an inner-core SST cooling algorithm for use in the Statistical Hurricane Prediction Scheme (SHIPS). Use of this algorithm in the statistical model has been shown to significantly improve SHIPS TC intensiry forecasts.
Successfully acquired 75 flight hours on the Aerosonde unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) platform.
Organized an upcoming international workshop on air-sea interaction (Washington, DC in May 2005). A key objective of this EMC-hosted workshop will be to enhance existing lines of communication between the operational modeling community and scientists actively involved in studying air-sea observations in hurricanes. The ultimate goal is to assess what types of observations can improve the operational models both in the near and long term.
Collaborated with AOML scientists to secure funds that would upgrade AOML'S ocean drifters with subsurface thermistor chains for the 2006-2007 Atlantic hurricane seasons. (This is great news for the operational ocean modeling community since thermistor-chain time series data will capture the evolution of the tropical cyclone upper-ocean environment which will enable scientists to directly compare simulations to observations.)

Highlighted Research Efforts (2005-2006):

2005 Atlantic hurricane season operational implementation of the Inner Core SST Cooling Algorithm in SHIPS.
Fly the 75 Aerosonde UAV flight hours within a tropical system during the 2005 Atlantic hurricane season.
Investigate the possibility of new air-sea interaction predictors for possible future use in the SHIPS forecast model. If preliminary results are successful, a formal proposal for additonal support will be submitted to the JHT in 2006.
Co-author of a recently submitted peer reviewed journal article that hightlights how HRD has successfully used the P-3 aircraft over the past 25 years.
Write a peer reviewed manuscript based on the JHT funded project that led to the development of the TC inner core cooling algorithm as well as the subsequent testing of the algorithm in SHIPS. Much of this research is a direct outgrowth of the findings in Cione and Uhlhorn (2003).
Coninue development and refinement of the Uhlhorn and Cione upper ocean TC modeling work designed to predict inner-core SST change given the storm's initial condition upper ocean thermal structure. A peer reviewed journal article for this work is planned.

References:

CIONE, J.J. and E. Uhlhorn 2003: Sea surface temperature variability in hurricanes: Implications with respect to intensity change. In Press. Mon. Wea. Rev.

CIONE, J.J., P. J. Black and S. Houston 2000: Surface observations in the hurricane environment. Mon. Wea. Rev., 128: 1550-1561.

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Last modified: 5/16/2005

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