Distinct Oceanic Responses at Rapidly Intensified and Weakened Regimes of Tropical Cyclone Ockhi (2017)

Abstract

Tropical cyclones (hereafter TC) are among the most destructive natural phenomena, resulting in human loss and property damage within a short period (Emanuel, 2003;Frank & Husain, 1971). With recent developments in satellite observations and numerical modeling, TC's track and intensity predictions have significantly improved (Le Marshall et al., 2002;Mohanty et al., 2019). However, rapid intensification (RI) and rapid weakening (RW) storms still provide major challenges to TC intensity predictability. RI can be defined as an increase of maximum sustained wind speeds at 10 m height by at least 30 kn (15.4 m s −1 ) in 24 hr, and RW can be defined as a comparable decrease in the same time interval (Kaplan & DeMaria, 2003;Wood & Ritchie, 2015). Studies carried out by Bhatia et al. (2019) and Emanuel (2017) showed ample evidence for increased occurrences of rapidly intensifying storms in the recent past, which may reflect ongoing global warming. The storm intensity is highly dependent on the underlying oceanic state as it fuels the TC's heat engine. Thus, it is crucial to understand

Numerical Experiments of Temperature Mixing and Post-Storm Re-Stratification over the Louisiana Shelf during Hurricane Katrina (2005)

“…Tropical storms, including hurricanes, can cause ocean surface cooling, turbulent mixing, and inertial motions, as addressed in many studies in the last few decades. Field and satellite observations, as well as numerical models, have been extensively used to study the oceanic response and the mixing induced by tropical storms (e.g., [1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8]). Heat loss to the storm, entrainment by turbulent mixing, and advection all contribute to the mixed layer heat budget [4].…”