# Tropical Cyclone Size Change under Ocean Warming and Associated Responses of Tropical Cyclone Destructiveness: Idealized Experiments

• Corresponding author: Yuan SUN, sunyuan1214@126.com
• Funds:

Supported by the National Key Research and Development Program of China (2018YFC1505803), National Natural Science Foundation of China (41605072), Natural Science Foundation of Jiangsu Province (BK20160768), and Priority Academic Program Development (PAPD) of Jiangsu Higher Education Institutions

• doi: 10.1007/s13351-020-8164-4
• The power dissipation index (PDI), which is defined as the sum of the cube of tropical cyclone (TC) maximum wind speed during TC lifetime, is widely used to estimate the TC destructive potential. However, due to the lack of high-resolution observations, little attention has been paid to the contribution of TC size change to TC destructive potential in response to ocean warming. In this study, sensitivity experiments are performed by using the high-resolution Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) model to investigate the responses of TC size and TC destructive potential to prescribed sea surface temperature (SST) increase under the present climate condition. The results show that TC size increases with the ocean warming. Possible reasons for TC size change are investigated with a focus on the outer air–sea moisture difference (ASMD). As SST increases, ASMD in the outer zone of the TC is larger than that in the inner zone, which increases the surface entropy flux (SEF) of the outer zone. This change in the radial distribution of SEF causes the increase of tangential wind in the outer zone, which further increases SEF, resulting in a positive feedback between outer-zone SEF and outer-zone tangential wind. This feedback leads to the increase of the ra-dius of gale-force wind, leading to the expansion of TC size. Moreover, to estimate the contribution of TC size change to TC destructiveness, we calculate TC size-dependent destructive potential (PDS) as the storm size information is available in the model outputs, as well as PDI that does not consider the effect of TC size change. We find that PDS increases exponentially as SST increases from 1 to 4°C, while PDI increases linearly; hence the former is soon much greater than the latter. This suggests that the growth effect of TC size cannot be ignored in estimating destruc-tiveness under ocean warming.
• Fig. 1.  (a) WRF nested domain configuration for idealized simulations and (b) storm tracks of all experiments. Note that the red storm symbol in (a) represents the initial tropical storm location.

Fig. 2.  Temporal evolutions of (a) maximum wind speed (MWS), (b) minimum sea level pressure (MSLP), and (c) radius of > 17 m s−1 azimuthal mean 10-m wind speed (R17) in SST sensitivity experiments. Black curve denotes CTRL, while green, blue, purple, and red curves denote ESST+1, ESST+2, ESST+3, and ESST+4, respectively.

Fig. 3.  Radial distributions of 10-m azimuthal mean wind speed during the TC mature stage in sensitivity experiments. The dashed line indicates 17 m s−1. TC mature stage is defined as the period when the maximum 10-m wind speed (${V_{\max }}$) is close to its lifetime maximum 10-m wind speed (${V_{{\rm{smax}} }}$), i.e., $\left| {{V_{\max }} - V_{{\rm{smax}} }} \right| \leqslant 3$ m s−1.

Fig. 4.  Temporal–radial distributions of azimuthally-averaged surface entropy flux (SEF; 103 W m−2) from (a) CTRL and (b−e) ESST+1, ESST+2, ESST+3, and ESST+4, respectively. The panel (f) shows the difference between ESST+4 and CTRL (ESST+4 minus CTRL).

Fig. 5.  As in Fig. 4, but for air–sea moisture difference (ASMD; 103 W m−2).

Fig. 6.  Temporal–radial distributions of radial sea level pressure gradient (shading; 10−2 Pa m−1) and tangential wind at 10 m (contour; m s−1) from (a) CTRL and (b−e) ESST+1, ESST+2, ESST+3, and ESST+4, respectively.

Fig. 7.  Temporal–radial distributions of azimuthally-averaged convective available potential energy (CAPE; J kg−1) from (a) CTRL and (b−e) ESST+1, ESST+2, ESST+3, and ESST+4, respectively.

Fig. 8.  Height–radiau cross-sections of azimuthally-averaged radial-wind circulation (shading; m s−1) and vertical wind velocity (contour; m s−1) at the mature stage from (a) CTRL and (b–e) ESST+1, ESST+2, ESST+3, and ESST+4, respectively. The panel (f) shows the difference between ESST+4 and CTRL (ESST+4 minus CTRL).

Fig. 9.  Distributions of maximum reflectivity (dBZ) at the mature stage: (a) CTRL and (b–e) ESST+1, ESST+2, ESST+3, and ESST+4, respectively.

Fig. 10.  Height–radius cross-sections of diagnosed tangential wind tendency (sum of the five terms; m s−1 h−1) averaged from 48 to 54 h during the TC size change period for CTRL, ESST+1, ESST+2, ESST+3, and ESST+4 (left panels). Right panels are the same as the left panels, except for mean radial advection (m s−1 h−1).

Fig. 11.  (a) PDI (blue) and PDS (red) as a function of SST increase (ΔSST). (b) Rescaled TC lifetime (L, blue), intensity (I, red), and size (S, green) as a function of ΔSST.

Fig. 12.  Schematic diagram on possible mechanisms responsible for the increase of TC destructive potential (PDI and PDS) under ocean warming.

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###### 通讯作者: 陈斌, bchen63@163.com
• 1.

沈阳化工大学材料科学与工程学院 沈阳 110142

## Tropical Cyclone Size Change under Ocean Warming and Associated Responses of Tropical Cyclone Destructiveness: Idealized Experiments

###### Corresponding author: Yuan SUN, sunyuan1214@126.com;
• 1. Key Laboratory of Meteorological Disaster, Ministry of Education (KLME)/Joint International Research Laboratory of Climate and Environmental Change (ILCEC)/Collaborative Innovation Center on Forecast and Evaluation of Meteorological Disasters (CIC-FEMD), Nanjing University of Information Science & Technology, Nanjing 210044, China
• 2. College of Meteorology and Oceanography, National University of Defense Technology, Nanjing 211101, China
• 3. Department of Atmospheric Sciences, School of Ocean and Earth Science and Technology, University of Hawaii, Honolulu, HI 96822, USA
Funds: Supported by the National Key Research and Development Program of China (2018YFC1505803), National Natural Science Foundation of China (41605072), Natural Science Foundation of Jiangsu Province (BK20160768), and Priority Academic Program Development (PAPD) of Jiangsu Higher Education Institutions

Abstract: The power dissipation index (PDI), which is defined as the sum of the cube of tropical cyclone (TC) maximum wind speed during TC lifetime, is widely used to estimate the TC destructive potential. However, due to the lack of high-resolution observations, little attention has been paid to the contribution of TC size change to TC destructive potential in response to ocean warming. In this study, sensitivity experiments are performed by using the high-resolution Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) model to investigate the responses of TC size and TC destructive potential to prescribed sea surface temperature (SST) increase under the present climate condition. The results show that TC size increases with the ocean warming. Possible reasons for TC size change are investigated with a focus on the outer air–sea moisture difference (ASMD). As SST increases, ASMD in the outer zone of the TC is larger than that in the inner zone, which increases the surface entropy flux (SEF) of the outer zone. This change in the radial distribution of SEF causes the increase of tangential wind in the outer zone, which further increases SEF, resulting in a positive feedback between outer-zone SEF and outer-zone tangential wind. This feedback leads to the increase of the ra-dius of gale-force wind, leading to the expansion of TC size. Moreover, to estimate the contribution of TC size change to TC destructiveness, we calculate TC size-dependent destructive potential (PDS) as the storm size information is available in the model outputs, as well as PDI that does not consider the effect of TC size change. We find that PDS increases exponentially as SST increases from 1 to 4°C, while PDI increases linearly; hence the former is soon much greater than the latter. This suggests that the growth effect of TC size cannot be ignored in estimating destruc-tiveness under ocean warming.

Reference (38)

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