Tropical cyclone life cycle in a three-dimensional numerical simulation

Smith, Roger K.; Kilroy, Gerard und Montgomery, M. T. (2021): Tropical cyclone life cycle in a three-dimensional numerical simulation. In: Quarterly Journal of the Royal Meteorological Society, Bd. 147, Nr. 739: S. 3373-3393

Abstract

An idealized, three-dimensional, numerical simulation of tropical cyclone evolution in a quiescent environment on an f-plane is used to explore aspects of the cyclone's life cycle in the context of the rotating-convection paradigm. In the 20-day simulation, the vortex undergoes a life cycle including a gestation period culminating in genesis, a rapid intensification phase, a mature phase, a transient decay and re-intensification phase, a second mature phase and a rapid decay phase. During much of the life cycle, the flow evolution is highly asymmetric, although important aspects of it can be understood within an azimuthally averaged framework, central to which are a boundary-layer control mechanism and a new ventilation diagnostic. The boundary-layer control mechanism provides an explanation for the gradual expansion of the inner core of the vortex. The ventilation diagnostic characterizes the ability of deep convection within a given radius to evacuate the mass of air ascending out of the boundary layer within that radius. The transient decay and re-intensification phase is not associated with an eyewall replacement cycle, but rather with a hitherto undescribed process in which the eyewall becomes fragmented as a rainband complex forms beyond it. This process is interpreted as an interplay between the boundary layer and ventilation. The final rapid decay of the vortex results from the ever increasing difficulty of deep convection to ventilate the air exiting the boundary layer. Any unventilated air flows radially outwards in the lower troposphere and leads to spin-down because of the approximate conservation of mean absolute angular momentum. If found in real cyclones, such transience or final decay might be erroneously attributed to ambient vertical wind shear. The results support the hypothesis that, even in a quiescent environment, isolated tropical cyclone vortices are intrinsically transient and never reach a globally steady state.

• Dokumententyp: Zeitschriftenartikel
• Fakultät: Physik
• Themengebiete: 500 Naturwissenschaften und Mathematik > 530 Physik
• ISSN: 0035-9009
• Sprache: Englisch