CAREER: A Comprehensive Assessment of Over-Ocean Tropical Cyclone Weakening

职业：对海洋热带气旋减弱的综合评估

• 批准号: 2237545
• 负责人: Kimberly Wood
• 金额: $ 52.97万
• 依托单位: Mississippi State University
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Continuing Grant
• 财政年份: 2023
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2023-08-15 至 2023-11-30
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=2237545&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: CAREER; Comprehensive; Assessment; Over; Ocean

The expanding population along U.S. coastlines who are at risk from hurricanes makes it essential to accurately predict the future behavior of these storms with sufficient lead time to enact appropriate, cost-effective actions that protect life and property. Much work has investigated hurricane intensification, but comparatively little effort has been invested in studying hurricanes that weaken while still over the ocean despite public perception of expected impacts being tied to hurricane category, such as Hurricane Florence in 2018. This project will explore the nature of hurricanes that weaken away from land, as well as characteristics of the near-storm environment, to quantify how over-ocean weakening varies across all tropical basins. The research will then investigate hurricanes that weaken on approach to land in order to evaluate how nearby land modifies these weakening pathways and facilitate advances in forecasting such events. Open-source programming tools developed by this project will be shared to ensure scientific transparency and expand accessibility to more users.Vertical wind shear can weaken a tropical cyclone, yet a range of shear magnitudes is associated with tropical cyclone weakening. Enhanced atmospheric moisture supports deep convection, but the location of this enhanced moisture relative to the storm center appears to affect the storm’s intensity. To interrogate the physical processes responsible for tropical cyclone weakening in these varied environments, this study will assess the spatial distribution of near-storm environmental characteristics and the relative timing of changes in those characteristics within a storm-relative framework for over-ocean weakening events in all tropical basins. The latest global reanalysis will be investigated for environmental fields, and spatial assessment of convection and its evolution over time—revealed by geostationary infrared imagery—will highlight the tropical cyclone’s response to its environment. Beyond advancing fundamental understanding of these storms, this project will craft a tropical cyclone analysis toolkit comprised of open-source Python tools to accelerate time-to-science for the broader research community. Toolkit examples will be developed and tested in the classroom to support teaching of tropical cyclone dynamics and programming practices, leading to modules that can be incorporated into existing curricula across institutions.This project is jointly funded by NSF Physical and Dynamic Meteorological program (PDM), and the Established Program to Stimulate Competitive Research (EPSCoR).This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.

美国海岸线面临飓风风险的人口不断增加，因此必须有足够的时间准确预测这些风暴的未来行为，以便采取适当的、具有成本效益的行动来保护生命和财产。尽管公众认为预期影响与飓风类别相关，例如 2018 年的佛罗伦萨飓风，但在研究仍在海洋上空减弱的飓风方面投入的精力相对较少。该项目将探讨远离陆地减弱的飓风的性质，如出色地作为近风暴环境的特征，以量化所有热带盆地的海洋减弱程度如何变化，然后该研究将调查接近陆地时减弱的飓风，以评估附近陆地如何改变这些减弱路径并促进预报的进展。该项目开发的开源编程工具将被共享，以确保科学透明度并扩大更多用户的可访问性。垂直风切变可以减弱热带气旋，但一定范围的切变幅度与热带气旋减弱有关。水分支持深层对流，但这种增强的水分相对于风暴中心的位置似乎会影响风暴的强度，为了探究这些不同环境中热带气旋减弱的物理过程，本研究将评估近风暴的空间分布。最新的全球再分析将研究环境场以及对流及其演变的空间评估。对地静止红外图像揭示的时间将突出热带气旋对其环境的响应，除了增进对这些风暴的基本了解之外，该项目还将制作一个由开源 Python 工具组成的热带气旋分析工具包，以加快科学发展的速度。更广泛的研究界将在课堂上开发和测试工具包示例，以支持热带气旋动力学和编程实践的教学，从而形成可以纳入跨机构现有课程的模块。该项目由以下机构共同资助： NSF 物理和动态气象计划 (PDM) 以及刺激竞争研究既定计划 (EPSCoR)。该奖项反映了 NSF 的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力优势和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。