Tropical cyclone intensity change: evaluating the effects of inner core precipitation properties and environmental influences

Update Item Information
Title Tropical cyclone intensity change: evaluating the effects of inner core precipitation properties and environmental influences
Publication Type thesis
School or College College of Mines & Earth Sciences
Department Atmospheric Sciences
Author Alvey, George Robert
Date 2015-08
Description Despite improvements in recent years, tropical cyclone intensity change, and in particular differentiating intensification rates (especially rapid intensification, RI), remains an unresolved issue. Studies have quantified the importance of both environmental and convective properties with respect to intensity change; however, conjoined analyses have been rare. Using 15 years (1998-2012) of analysis information for Atlantic and East Pacific storms, we analyze environmental conditions to determine a threshold in which intensification is plausible. In conjunction with the environmental dataset, an expansive collection of passive microwave satellite data is used to investigate the relative importance of various convective properties (specifically those proxies for convective intensity, symmetry, and area). The Tropical Cyclone - Passive Microwave dataset (TC-PMW) statistics, and in particular, the spatial distributions of precipitation and intense convection (proxied using 85-91 GHz polarization corrected temperatures), are related to environmental conditions in an analysis of storms that meet the ""plausible"" threshold. Storms with higher intensification rates (including RI) are found to have more ""intense"" near center convection and more asymmetric distributions of precipitation prior to intensification onset (but also a greater overall areal coverage). The rate of symmetrization prior to and during intensification increases with increasing intensity change, and rapidly intensifying storms are more symmetric than slowly intensifying storms after onset. While results clearly demonstrate important contributions from intense convection, it is concluded that hot towers, alone, are neither a necessary nor sufficient condition for RI. Of possibly greater importance, intensification is more strongly correlated to the evolution of the areal, radial, and symmetric distribution of precipitation. In addition, while intensification is sensitive to changes in environmental characteristics, these variables, alone, do not consistently offer predictive value in distinguishing 24-hour intensity changes in 10-kt increments (hence the emphasis on convective and precipitation characteristics).
Type Text
Publisher University of Utah
Subject hurricane; intensification; precipitation; satellite; tropical cyclone
Dissertation Institution University of Utah
Dissertation Name Master of Science
Language eng
Rights Management Copyright © George Robert Alvey 2015
Format application/pdf
Format Medium application/pdf
Format Extent 27,415 bytes
Identifier etd3/id/3843
ARK ark:/87278/s6dr63r6
Setname ir_etd
ID 197394
Reference URL https://collections.lib.utah.edu/ark:/87278/s6dr63r6
Back to Search Results