multiscale structure and evolution of hurricane earl 2010 during rapid intensification abstractthe structure and evolution of hurricane earl 2010 during its rapid intensification as sampled by aircraft is studied here rapid intensification occurs in two stages during the early stage covering 24 h earl was a tropical storm experiencing moderate northeasterly shear with an asymmetric distribution of convection and the symmetric structure was shallow broad and diffuse the upper level circulation center was significantly displaced from the lower level circulation at the beginning of this stage deep vigorous convection termed convective bursts was located on the east side of the storm and appeared to play a role in positioning the upper level cyclonic circulation center above the low level center by the end of this stage the vortex was aligned and extended over a deep layer and rapid intensification began during the late stage rapid intensification continued as earl intensified 20 m s 1 during the next 24 h the vortex remained aligned in the presence of weaker vertical shear

effects of vertical wind shear on the intensity and structure of numerically simulated hurricanes a series of numerical simulations of tropical cyclones in idealized large scale environments is performed to examine the effects of vertical wind shear on the structure and intensity of hurricanes the simulations are performed using the nonhydrostatic pennsylvania state university national center for atmospheric research fifth generation mesoscale model using a 5 km fine mesh and fully explicit representation of moist processes when large scale vertical shears are applied to mature tropical cyclones the storms quickly develop wavenumber one asymmetries with upward motion and rainfall concentrated on the left side of the shear vector looking downshear in agreement with earlier studies the asymmetries develop due to the storm s response to imbalances caused by the shear the storms in shear weaken with time and eventually reach an approximate steady state intensity that is well below their theoretical maximum potential intensity as expected the magnitude of the weakening increases with increasing shear all of the storms experience time lags between the imposition of the large scale shear and the resulting rise in the minimum central pressure while the lag is at most a few hours when the storm is placed in very strong 15 m s21 shear storms in weaker shears experience much longer lag times with th e5ms 21 shear case showing no signs of weakening until more than 36 h after the shear is applied these lags suggest that the storm intensity is to some degree predictable from observations of largescale shear changes in all cases both the development of the asymmetries in core structure and the subsequent weakening of the storm occur before any resolvable tilt of the storm s vertical axis occurs it is hypothesized that the weakening of the storm occurs via the following sequence of events first the shear causes the structure of the eyewall region to become highly asymmetric throughout the depth of the storm second the asymmetries in the upper troposphere where the storm circulation is weaker become sufficiently strong that air with high values of potential vorticity and equivalent potential temperature are mixed outward rather than into the eye this allows the shear to ventilate the eye resulting in a loss of the warm core at upper levels which causes the central pressure to rise weakening the entire storm the maximum potential vorticity becomes concentrated in saturated portions of the eyewall cloud aloft rather than in the eye third the asymmetric features at upper levels are advected by the shear causing the upper portions of the vortex to tilt approximately downshear the storm weakens from the top down reaching an approximate steady state intensity when the ventilated layer can descend no farther due to the increasing strength and stability of the vortex at lower levels

the roles of asymmetric inflow forcing induced by outer rainbands in tropical cyclone secondary eyewall formation abstractthis study analyzes the secondary eyewall formation sef process in an idealized cloud resolving simulation of a tropical cyclone in particular the unbalanced boundary layer response to asymmetric inflow forcing induced by outer rainbands orbs is examined in order to understand the mechanisms driving the sustained convection outside the primary eyewall during the early phase of sef the enhancement of convection in the sef region follows the formation and inward contraction of an orb the azimuthal distribution of the enhanced convection is highly asymmetric but regular generally along a half circle starting from the downwind portion of the orb it turns out that the descending radial inflow in the middle and downwind portions of the orb initiates maintains a strong inflow in the boundary layer the latter is able to penetrate into the inner core region sharpens the gradient of radial velocity and reinforces convergence consequently warm and moist air is continuously lifted up at the lead

dynamics of the stratiform sector of a tropical cyclone rainband abstractairborne doppler radar documented the stratiform sector of a rainband within the stationary rainband complex of hurricane rita the stratiform rainband sector is a mesoscale feature consisting of nearly uniform precipitation and weak vertical velocities from collapsing convective cells upward transport and associated latent heating occur within the stratiform cloud layer in the form of rising radial outflow beneath downward transport is organized into descending radial inflow in response to two regions of latent cooling in the outer upper regions of the rainband sublimational cooling introduces horizontal buoyancy gradients which produce horizontal vorticity and descending inflow similar to that of the trailing stratiform region of a mesoscale convective system within the zone of heavier stratiform precipitation melting cooling along the outer rainband edge creates a midlevel horizontal buoyancy gradient across the rainband that drives air farther inward beneath the brightband the organi

the effect of relative flow on the asymmetric structure in the interior of hurricanes abstract asymmetric structure of tropical cyclones simulated by the geophysical fluid dynamics laboratory high resolution triply nested movable mesh hurricane model was analyzed emphasis was placed on the quasi steady component of the asymmetric structure in the region of the eyewall it was found that the asymmetry was primarily caused by the relative wind that is the flow entering and leaving the storm region relative to the moving storm a set of idealized numerical experiments was first performed both with a constant and a variable coriolis parameter f and the addition of basic flows that were either constant or sheared with height analysis was then made for one case of hurricane gilbert 1988 to demonstrate that the quasi steady asymmetric structure analyzed in the idealized studies could be identified in this real data case vorticity analysis in the variable f experiment indicated that quasi steady asymmetries resulted in the eyewall region through the effect of vorticity advection due to

on the characteristic height scales of the hurricane boundary layer in this study data from 794 gps dropsondes deployed by research aircraft in 13 hurricanes are analyzed to studythecharacteristicheightscalesofthehurricaneboundarylayer theheightscalesaredefinedinavariety of ways the height of the maximum total wind speed the inflow layer depth and the mixed layer depth the height of the maximumwind speed and the inflow layerdepth are referred to asthe dynamical boundarylayer heights while the mixed layer depth is referred to as the thermodynamical boundary layer height the data analyses show that there is a clear separation of the thermodynamical and dynamical boundary layer heights consistent with previous studies on the boundary layer structure in individual storms the dynamical boundary layer height is found to decrease with decreasing radius to the storm center the thermodynamic boundary layer height which is much shallower than the dynamical boundary layer height is also found to decrease with decreasing radius to the storm center the results also suggest that using the traditional critical richardson number method to determine the boundary layer height may not accurately reproduce the height scale of the hurricane boundary layer these different height scales reveal the complexity of the hurricane boundary layer structure that should be captured in hurricane model simulations

asymmetric hurricane boundary layer structure from dropsonde composites in relation to the environmental vertical wind shear this study investigates the asymmetric structure of the hurricane boundary layer in relation to the environmentalverticalwind shearin theinner core region data from1878 gps dropsondesdeployed by research aircraft in 19 hurricanes are analyzed in a composite framework kinematic structure analyses based on doppler radar data from 75 flights are compared with the dropsonde composites shear relative quadrantmeancomposite analysesshow that boththekinematicandthermodynamic boundarylayerheight scalestend to decrease with decreasing radius consistent with previous axisymmetric analyses there is still a clear separation between the kinematic and thermodynamic boundary layer heights both the thermodynamic mixed layer and height of maximum tangential wind speed are within the inflow layer the inflow layer depth is found to be deeper in quadrants downshear with the downshear right dr quadrant being the deepest the mixed layer depth and height of maximum tangential wind speed are alike at the eyewall but are deeper outside in quadrants left of the shear the results also suggest that air parcels acquire equivalent potential temperature ue from surface fluxes as they rotate through the upshear right ur quadrant from the upshear left ul quadrant convection is triggered in the dr quadrant in the presence of asymmetric mesoscale lifting coincident with a maximum in ue energy is then released by latent heating in the downshear left dl quadrant convective downdrafts bring down cool and dry air to the surface and lower ue again in the dl and ul quadrants this cycling process may be directly tied to shear induced asymmetry of convection in hurricanes

the relationship between storm motion vertical wind shear and convective asymmetries in tropical cyclones abstract the influence of the direction of storm motion on the azimuthal distribution of electrified convection in 35 atlantic basin tropical cyclones from 1985 to 1999 was examined using data from the national lightning detection network in the inner 100 km flashes most often occurred in the front half of storms with a preference for the right front quadrant in the outer rainbands r 100 300 km flashes occurred predominantly to the right of motion although the maximum remained in the right front quadrant the results are shown to be consistent with previous studies of asymmetries in rainfall radar reflectivity and vertical motion with respect to tropical cyclone motion the motion effect has been attributed to the influence of asymmetric friction in the tropical cyclone boundary layer the authors previously found a strong signature in the azimuthal distribution of lightning with respect to vertical wind shear because both effects show clearly vertical wind shear and storm motion must themse

vortex rossby waves in a numerically simulated tropical cyclone part i overall structure potential vorticity and kinetic energy budgets abstract the asymmetric structure in the inner core of a numerically simulated tropical cyclone is analyzed in this study the simulated tropical cyclone is found to be highly asymmetric in the inner core in the mid lower troposphere the asymmetry in the core is dominated by azimuthal wavenumber 1 and wavenumber 2 vortex rossby waves these waves propagate azimuthally upwind against the azimuthal mean cyclonic tangential flow around the eyewall and thus have a much longer cyclonic rotation period by a factor of 2 than the period of a parcel moving with the cyclonic mean tangential flow around the circumference they also propagate outward against the boundary layer inflow of the azimuthal mean cyclone the waves are only visible within a radius of about 60 km from the cyclone center beyond this distance the radial gradient of potential vorticity pv of the azimuthal mean cyclone is too weak to support the vortex rossby waves although the divergent motion remains strong the geopotential height an

quadrant distribution of tropical cyclone inner core kinematics in relation to environmental shear abstractairborne doppler radar data collected in tropical cyclones by national oceanic and atmospheric administration wp 3d aircraft over an 8 yr period 2003 10 are used to statistically analyze the vertical structure of tropical cyclone eyewalls with reference to the deep layer shear convective evolution within the inner core conforms to patterns shown by previous studies convection initiates downshear right intensifies downshear left and weakens upshear analysis of the vertical distribution of radar reflectivity and vertical air motion indicates the development of upper level downdrafts in conjunction with strong convection downshear left and a maximum in frequency upshear left intense updrafts and downdrafts both conform to the shear asymmetry pattern while strong updrafts occur in the eyewall intense downdrafts show far more radial variability particularly in the upshear left quadrant though they concentrate along the eyewall edges strong updrafts are collocated with low level inflow and

mesoscale and convective structure of a hurricane rainband abstract the mesoscale thermodynamic kinematic and radar structure of a hurricane floyd rainband observed on 7 september 1981 is presented data are from 26 aircraft passes through the rainband from 150 to 6400 m a composite technique which presents rainband structure as a function of distance from the storm circulation center reveals inflow from the outer edge of the band and a partial barrier to this flow below 3 km in the direction parallel to rainband orientation radar reveals cellular reflectivity structure on the upwind and central portions of the rainband the frequency of cellular precipitation decreases in favor of stratiform precipitation further downwind as the band spirals gradually towards the eyewall in the radial direction a decrease of 12 k in e is observed across the rainband in the subcloud layer convective scale up and downdrafts that are associated with cellular reflectivity structure are hypothesized to be responsible for the thermodynamic modification of the cloud and subc

satellite derived rain rates in vertically sheared tropical cyclones 1 when tropical cyclones interact with environmental vertical wind shear they often take on an asymmetric structure prior observational and modeling studies have identified a preference for rainfall enhancement in the directions that are down shear and also to the left of the shear vector in the northern hemisphere this study composites hundreds of snapshots of the rain fields for atlantic tropical cyclones between 1988 2004 taken from satellite borne passive microwave radiometer estimates quadrant mean rain rates are fairly symmetrical in weakly sheared hurricanes for cases with shear greater than 10 m s 1 the favored downshear and left of shear quadrants have a factor of two greater rain rates in the inner core than the non favored quadrants beyond 100 km from the center this asymmetry increases to a factor of four or more the magnitude of the asymmetry is greater for tropical storms although the mean rain rates are less

rapid intensification of a sheared tropical storm abstract a weak tropical storm gabrielle in 2001 experienced a 22 hpa pressure fall in less than 3 h in the presence of 13 m s 1 ambient vertical wind shear a convective cell developed downshear left of the center and moved cyclonically and inward to the 17 km radius during the period of rapid intensification this cell had one of the most intense 85 ghz scattering signatures ever observed by the tropical rainfall measuring mission trmm the cell developed at the downwind end of a band in the storm core maximum vorticity in the cell exceeded 2 5 10 2 s 1 the cell structure broadly resembled that of a vortical hot tower rather than a supercell at the time of minimum central pressure the storm consisted of a strong vortex adjacent to the cell with a radius of maximum winds of about 10 km that exhibited almost no tilt in the vertical this was surrounded by a broader vortex that tilted approximately left of the ambient shear vector in a similar direction as the broad precipitation shield this st

effects of vertical wind shear and storm motion on tropical cyclone rainfall asymmetries deduced from trmm abstract vertical wind shear and storm motion are two of the most important factors contributing to rainfall asymmetries in tropical cyclones tcs global tc rainfall structure in terms of azimuthal distribution and asymmetries relative to storm motion has been previously described using the tropical rainfall measuring mission microwave imager rainfall estimates the mean tc rainfall distribution and the wavenumber 1 asymmetry vary with storm intensity and geographical location among the six oceanic basins this study uses a similar approach to investigate the relationship between the structure of tc rainfall and the environmental flow by computing the rainfall asymmetry relative to the vertical wind shear the environmental vertical wind shear is defined as the difference between the mean wind vectors of the 200 and 850 hpa levels over an outer region extending from the radius of 200 800 km around the storm center the wavenumber 1 maximum rainfall asymmetry is downshear left right in the northern

rapid intensification of a sheared fast moving hurricane over the gulf stream abstracthurricane irene 1999 rapidly intensified from 65 to 95 kt 33 4 to 48 9 m s 1 in 18 h during the rapid intensification ri period the northeastward storm motion increased from 10 to 18 m s 1 the ambient southwesterly vertical wind shear increased from 6 7 to 10 13 m s 1 and the downshear tilt of the inner core vortex increased the azimuthal wavenumber 1 asymmetric convection that developed was consistent with a superposition of shear induced and storm motion induced forcing for vertical motion downshear and ahead of the center although the diabatic heating remained strongly asymmetric it was of sufficient intensity to dramatically increase the azimuthally averaged heating this heating occurred almost entirely inside the radius of maximum winds a region known to favor rapid warm core development and spinup of the vortex it is hypothesized that asymmetric forcing from the large vertical wind shear and rapid storm motion were responsible for ri an unanswered question is what determin

tropical cyclone motion and evolution in vertical shear abstract the motion and the evolution of tropical cyclone like vortices in an environmental flow with vertical shear are investigated using a baroclinic primitive equation model the study focuses on the fundamental dynamics of a baroclinic vortex in vertical shear the influence of vortex structure and the role of diabatic heating the results show that the initial response of the vortex to the vertical shear is to tilt downshear as soon as the tilt develops the upper level anticyclonic and lower level cyclonic circulations begin to interact with each other as a result of these interactions the tilted axis of the vortex reaches a stable state after an initial adjustment which varies with the structure of the vortex its environmental flow shear and the cumulus convective heating the motion of an adiabatic vortex in vertical shear is controlled by both the steering of the environmental flow and vertical coupling mechanisms most of the vortices move with the environmental flow at about 650 hpa or

vertical structure of hurricane eyewalls as seen by the trmm precipitation radar abstractstatistical analysis of the vertical structure of radar echoes in the eyewalls of tropical cyclones shown by the tropical rainfall measurement mission trmm precipitation radar pr shows that the eyewall contains high reflectivities and high echo tops with deeper and more intense but highly intermittent echo perturbations superimposed on the basic structure the overall echo strength height of echo top and presence of intense echo perturbations all increase with vortex strength intense echo perturbations decrease in frequency with low sea surface temperatures when the pr data are normalized by the amount of radar echo in each sample and examined quadrant by quadrant relative to the direction of the environmental shear the nature of convective processes in different parts of the eyewall becomes apparent the normalized statistics of the echo intensity brightband structure and maximum echo top height show that processes generating convective precipitation are generally favored in the dow

on the initial development of asymmetric vertical motion and horizontal relative flow in a mature tropical cyclone embedded in environmental vertical shear in this paper the authors focus on the initial development of asymmetric vertical motion and horizontal relative flow in a mature tropical cyclone tc embedded in an environmental vertical shear the fully compressible nonhydrostatic tc model was used to perform a series of numerical experiments with a mature tc with different intensities embedded in shear with different magnitudes and different vertical profiles results show that the development of both the wavenumber 1 asymmetric vertical motion and horizontal relative flow for a tc embedded in vertical shear is quite sensitive to both the magnitude and the vertical profile of wind shear as well as the intensity of the tc itself diagnostic analysis based on the quasi balanced potential vorticity inversion indicates that the balanced dynamics can only explain a small portion of the asymmetric vertical motion and relative flow the unbalanced processes contribute predominantly to the developmentoftheasymmetricflowinthesimulations itisshownthattheeyewallofamaturetcplaysarole somewhat like a material cylinder embedded in an environmental flow with vertical shear the interaction between the environmental shear and the eyewall produces vertical gradient of convergence divergence of horizontal wind around the lateral edge of the eyewall this forces much stronger asymmetric vertical motion than the balanced processes do and drives significant horizontal relative divergent flow over the storm core which opposes vertical shear and reduces the vertical tilt of the storm axis in addition the budget analysis for the axisymmetric tangential wind demonstrates that the asymmetric flow plays a dominant role in weakening the storm top down

a multiscale numerical study of hurricane andrew 1992 part ii kinematics and inner core structures despite considerable research understanding of the temporal evolution of the inner core structures of hurricanes is very limited owing to the lack of continuous high resolution observational data of a storm in this study the results of a 72 h explicit simulation of hurricane andrew 1992 with a grid size of 6 km are examined to explore the inner core axisymmetric and asymmetric structures of the storm during its rapid deepening stage based on the simulation a conceptual model of the axisymmetric structures of the storm is proposed most of the proposed structures confirm previous observations the main ingredients include a main inflow outflow in the boundary layer upper troposphere with little radial flow in between a divergent slantwise ascent in the eyewall a penetrative dry downdraft at the inner edge of the eyewall and a general weak subsiding motion in the eye with typical warming drying above an inversion located near an altitude of about 2 3 km the storm deepens as the axes of these features contract it is found that the inversion divides the eye of the hurricane vertically into two parts with a deep layer of warm dry air above and a shallow pool of warm moist air below the air aloft descends at an average rate of 5c m s 21 and has a residency time of several days in contrast the warm moist pool consists of air from the main inflow and penetrative downdrafts offset somewhat by the air streaming in a returning outflow into the eyewall in the lowest 2 km it is subject to the influence of the upward heat and moisture fluxes over the underlying warm ocean the warm moist pool appears to play an important role in supplying high ue air for deep convective development in the eyewall the penetrative downdraft is dry and originates from the return inflow in the upper troposphere and it is driven by sublimative evaporative cooling under the influence of the asymmetric radial inflow of dry cold air in the midtroposphere it penetrates to the bottom of the eye azimuthally downshear with a width often greater than 100 km in a radially narrow zone along the slantwise inner edge of the eyewall it is further shown that all the meteorological fields are highly asymmetric whereas the storm scale flow features a source sink couplet in the boundary layer and dual gyres aloft the inner core structures exhibit alternative radial inflow and outflow and a series of inhomogeneous updrafts and downdrafts all the fields tilt more or less with height radially outward and azimuthally downshear furthermore pronounced fluctuations of air motion are found in both the eye and the eyewall sometimes a deep layer of upward motion appears at the center of the eye all these features contribute to the trochoidal oscillation of the storm track and movement the main steering appears to be located at the midtroposphere 4 5 km and the deep layer mean winds represent well the movement of the hurricane

crustal thermal regime inferred from magnetic anomaly data and its relationship to seismogenic layer thickness the japanese islands case study abstract the seismogenic layer thickness correlates with surface heat flow beneath the japanese islands however this correlation is shown at restricted area where seismic activity is high in order to overcome this spatial limitation we used another approach to estimate the regional thermal structure in the crust beneath the japanese islands with more uniform coverage the bottom depths of the magnetized crust determined from the spectral analysis of residual magnetic anomalies is generally interpreted as the level of the curie point isotherm we applied this method to estimate the crustal thermal structure in square windows of 2 125 2 125 the obtained depths ranging from 11 to 30 km with average value of 18 km correlate with the seismogenic layer thickness it suggests that the curie point depth is a useful indicator of the crustal thermal structure in these regions

the dynamic response of the hurricane wind field to spiral rainband heating abstract the response of the hurricane wind field to spiral rainband heating is examined by using a three dimensional nonhydrostatic linear model of the vortex anelastic equations diabatic heat sources which are designed in accordance with previous observations of spiral rainbands are made to rotate with the flow around the hurricane like wind field of a balanced axisymmetric vortex common kinematic features are recovered such as the overturning secondary circulation descending midlevel radial inflow and cyclonically accelerated tangential flow on the radially outward side of spiral rainbands comparison of the responses to the purely convective and stratiform rainbands indicates that the overturning secondary circulation is mostly due to the convective part of the rainband and is stronger in the upwind region while midlevel radial inflow descending to the surface is due to the stratiform characteristics of the rainband and is stronger in the downwind region the secondary horizontal wind maxim

a numerical study of hurricane erin 2001 part ii shear and the organization of eyewall vertical motion a high resolution numerical simulation of hurricane erin 2001 is used to examine the organization of vertical motion in the eyewall and how that organization responds to a large and rapid increase in the environmental vertical wind shear and subsequent decrease in shear during the early intensification period prior to the onset of significant shear the upward motion in the eyewall was concentrated in small scale convective updrafts that formed in association with regions of concentrated vorticity herein termed mesovortices with no preferred formation region around the eyewall asymmetric flow within the eye was weak as the shear increased an azimuthal wavenumber 1 asymmetry in storm structure developed with updrafts tending to occur on the downshear to downshear left side of the eyewall continued intensification of the shear led to increasing wavenumber 1 asymmetry large vortex tilt and a change in eyewall structure and vertical motion organization during this time the eyewall structure was dominated by a vortex couplet with a cyclonic anticyclonic vortex on the downtilt left downtilt right side of the eyewall and strong asymmetric flow across the eye that led to strong mixing of eyewall vorticity into the eye upward motion was concentrated over an azimuthally broader region on the downtilt side of the eyewall upstream of the cyclonic vortex where low level environmental inflow converged with the asymmetric outflow from the eye as the shear diminished the vortex tilt and wavenumber 1 asymmetry decreased while the organization of updrafts trended back toward that seen during the weak shear period based upon the results for the erin case as well as that for a similar simulation of hurricane bonnie 1998 a conceptual model is developed for the organization of vertical motion in the eyewall as a function of the strength of the vertical wind shear in weak to moderate shear higher wavenumber asymmetries associated with eyewall mesovortices dominate the wavenumber 1 asymmetry associated with the shear so that convective scale updrafts form when the mesovortices move into the downtilt side of the eyewall and dissipate on the uptilt side under strong shear conditions the wavenumber 1 asymmetry characterized by a prominent vortex couplet in the eyewall dominates the vertical motion organization so that mesoscale ascent with embedded convection occurs over an azimuthally broader region on the downtilt side of the eyewall further research is needed to determine if these results apply more generally

the dynamics of boundary layer jets within the tropical cyclone core part ii nonlinear enhancement abstract observations of wind profiles within the tropical cyclone boundary layer until recently have been quite rare however the recent spate of observations from the gps dropsonde have confirmed that a low level wind speed maximum is a common feature of the tropical cyclone boundary layer in part i a mechanism for producing such a maximum was proposed whereby strong inward advection of angular momentum generates the supergradient flow the processes that maintain the necessary inflow against the outward acceleration due to gradient wind imbalance were identified as being i vertical diffusion ii vertical advection and iii horizontal advection and a linear analytical model of the boundary layer flow in a translating tropical cyclone was presented and used to diagnose the properties of the jet and the near surface flow a significant shortcoming was that the jet was too weak which was argued to be due to the neglect of vertical advection here a high resolution dry hydrostatic numerical

tropical cyclone formation in a sheared environment a case study abstract the development of hurricane danny 1997 from depression to hurricane was examined using cloud to ground lightning data reconnaissance aircraft data and satellite imagery vertical wind shear between 850 and 200 hpa of 5 11 m s 1 produced persistent downshear convective outbreaks that became progressively more intense and closer to the center during the development early in the period the storm intensified steadily in the presence of this downshear convection during the last and most intense outbreak a second vortex appeared to develop within the convection evidence is presented that the new downshear vortex became the dominant vortex and absorbed the original based on these events it is hypothesized that the presence of moderate vertical wind shear accelerated the early development process equivalent potential temperature fields within 500 m of the surface were examined only well after the period of vortex interaction did the characteristic mature tropical cyclone radial profile of eq

eastern asia in the cretaceous new paleomagnetic data from south korea and a new look at chinese and japanese data lower cretaceous continental sediments and volcanic rocks have been sampled in the gyeongsang basin south korea a detailed analysis of 160 specimens reveals two stable components of magnetization a postfolding low temperature lt component with normal polarity and a stable high temperature ht component with both normal and reversed polarities the blocking temperature of the ht component ranges from 540 c up to the neel temperature of hematite this component predates the folding of the series and yields a pole at 68 n 205 e a95 6 the prefolding magnetization indicates that south korea stood at a latitude nearly identical to its present day latitude in the lower cretaceous comparison of korean data with revised paleomagnetic data from north and south china and japan shows that all these blocks of eastern asia occupied the same positions in term of latitude and were probably parts of a single craton since at least the lower cretaceous the paleomagnetic directions of the sino korean block show large discrepancies with respect to the expected directions of the stable eurasian siberian block an interpretation involving significant n s motion 1000 km between either north and south china or between north china and siberia appears to contradict geological data a preferred interpretation is that the siberian data are in serious error and that the combined china korea lower cretaceous pole provides a valid estimate for the eurasian plate as a whole

environmental flow impacts on tropical cyclone structure diagnosed from airborne doppler radar composites abstractfollowing a recent demonstration of multicase compositing of axisymmetric tropical cyclone tc structure derived from airborne doppler radar measurements the authors extend the analysis to the asymmetric structure using an unprecedented database from 75 tc flights in particular they examine the precipitation and kinematic asymmetry forced by the tc s motion and interaction with vertical wind shear for the first time they quantify the average magnitude and phase of the three dimensional shear relative kinematic asymmetry of observed tcs through a composite approach the composite analysis confirms principal features of the shear relative tc asymmetry documented in prior numerical and observational studies e g downshear tilt downshear right convective initiation and a downshear left precipitation maximum the statistical significance of the composite shear relative structure is demonstrated through a stratification of cases by shear magnitude the impact of storm motion on eyewall convect

vortex rossby waves in a numerically simulated tropical cyclone part ii the role in tropical cyclone structure and intensity changes abstract in part i the author analyzed the asymmetric structure in the inner core of a numerically simulated tropical cyclone and found that the asymmetry near the eyewall in the mid lower troposphere is dominated by wavenumber 1 and 2 vortex rossby waves these waves are found to be well coupled with asymmetries in eyewall convection and thus may play an important role in the life cycle of a tropical cyclone in this paper analyses are extended to include the role of these vortex rossby waves in tropical cyclone structure and intensity changes the waves are found to transport angular momentum from the eyewall to the eye accelerating tangential winds in the eye at the expense of decelerating the tangential wind in the eyewall and thus they play an important role in the inner core dynamics of the tropical cyclone convection in the eyewall is enhanced between the downstream trough and upstream ridge in the vortex rossby waves but suppressed between the downstream ridge and upstream trough this close

quadrant dependent evolution of low level tangential wind of a tropical cyclone in the shear flow abstractthis study investigates the quadrant by quadrant evolution of the low level tangential wind near the eyewall of an idealized simulated mature tropical cyclone embedded in a unidirectional shear flow it is found that the quadrant averaged tangential wind in the right of shear quadrants weakens continuously while that in the left of shear quadrants experiences a two stage evolution a quasi steady stage followed by a weakening stage after the imposing of vertical wind shear this leads to a larger weakening rate in the right of shear and a stronger jet in the left of shear quadrants the budget analysis shows that the quadrant dependent evolution of tangential wind is controlled through the balance between the generalized coriolis force gcf i e the radial advection of absolute angular momentum and the advection terms the steady decreasing of the gcf is primarily responsible for the continuous weakening of jet strength in the right of shear quadrants for the left of shear quadrants the quas

mesoscale aspects of the downshear reformation of a tropical cyclone the downshear reformation of tropical storm gabrielle 2001 was investigated using radar reflectivity and lightning data that were nearly continuous in time as well as frequent aircraft reconnaissance flights initially the storm was a marginal tropical storm in an environment with strong 850 200 hpa vertical wind shear of 12 13 m s 1 and an approaching upper tropospheric trough both the observed outflow and an adiabatic balance model calculation showed that the radial vertical circulation increased with time as the trough approached convection was highly asymmetric with almost all radar return located in one quadrant left of downshear in the storm reconnaissance data show that an intense mesovortex formed downshear of the original center this vortex was located just south of rather than within a strong downshear left lightning outbreak consistent with tilting of the horizontal vorticity associated with the vertical wind shear the downshear mesovortex contained a 972 hpa minimum central pressure 20 hpa lower than minimum pressure in the original vortex just 3 h earlier the mesovortex became the new center of the storm but weakened somewhat prior to landfall it is argued that dry air carried around the storm from the region of upshear subsidence as well as the direct effects of the shear prevented the reformed vortex from continuing to intensify despite the subsequent weakening of the reformed center it reached land with greater intensity than the original center it is argued that this intensification process was set into motion by the vertical wind shear in the presence of an environment with upward motion forced by the upper tropospheric trough in addition the new center formed much closer to the coast and made landfall much earlier than predicted such vertical shear induced intensity and track fluctuations are important to understand especially in storms approaching the coast

hodograph curvature and updraft intensity in numerically modeled supercells abstract a set of numerical simulations of supercell thunderstorms has been carried out with a range of low level curvatures in the environmental hodograph and midlevel shears they cover a range of hodograph shape as measured by the integrated helicity of the lowest 3 km of the hodograph the peak updraft occurs in the first hour of the storms and tends to be greater for larger values of environmental helicity there is also a slight tendency for greater updraft intensity with lesser values of midlevel shear significantly air in the core of the updrafts at midlevels 5 km is not the most unstable air at the level the most buoyant air rises in a region with a downward directed pressure gradient force which slows its ascent conversely pressure gradient forces at lower levels 2 3 km accelerate less buoyant air upward into the core of the midlevel updrafts the pressure gradient force is larger in the cases with more curvature in the environmental wind than the low curvature environments this i

convective scale variations in the inner core rainbands of a tropical cyclone airborne doppler radar documented a variety of convective scale structures within the inner core rainbands of hurricane rita 2005 as predicted by past studies wind shear determined azimuthal variations in the convection all convective scale circulations had radial inflow at low levels upward motion and outflow in the midtroposphere convective cells at smaller radii contained a low level tangential jet determined largely by tangential acceleration due to angular momentum conservation uy r term while cells at larger radii contained a low level and or midlevel jet determined jointly by the uy r and vertical advection terms the outflow was at a higher lower altitude for the outer inner cells radial variations in the convective cells are attributable to differencesin buoyancy and vertical shear of the radial wind u z more buoyant updrafts at larger radii enhance vertical advection of y creating local tangential jets at midlevels at smaller radii the stronger low level radial inflow contributes to a greater u z confining convectively generated jets to low levels the low level tangential jet and convectively generated pressure gradients produce outward pointing supergradient acceleration that decelerates the boundary layer inflow consequently this supergradient flow will enhance convergence and convection at the radius of inner rainbandcells increasing the likelihoodof secondary eyewall formation it is hypothesized that a critical zone for secondary eyewall formation exists where sufficiently high u z consistently constrains the altitudes of convectively generated supergradient flow so that convection in this radial zone leads to a newly developed eyewall once an incipient secondary eyewall forms at a certain radius subsidence occurring along its inner edge separates it from the primary eyewall