Accession Number:

ADA620087

Title:

Departures from Axisymmetric Balance Dynamics during Secondary Eyewall Formation

Descriptive Note:

Journal article

Corporate Author:

NAVAL POSTGRADUATE SCHOOL MONTEREY CA DEPT OF METEOROLOGY

Personal Author(s):

• Abarca, Sergio F.
• Montgomery, Michael T.

Report Date:

2014-10-01

Pagination or Media Count:

18.0

Abstract:

The authors question the widely held view that radial contraction of a secondary eyewall during an eyewall replacement cycle is well understood and governed largely by the classical theory of axisymmetric balance dynamics. The investigation is based on a comparison of the secondary circulation and derived tangential wind tendency between a full-physics simulation and the Sawyer Eliassen balance model. The comparison is made at a time when the full-physics model exhibits radial contraction of the secondary eyewall during a canonical eyewall replacement cycle. It is shown that the Sawyer Eliassen model is unable to capture the phenomenology of secondary eyewall radial contraction because it predicts a net spindown of the boundary layer tangential winds and does not represent the boundary layer spinup mechanism that has been articulated in recent work.

Descriptors:

• *ANGULAR MOMENTUM
• *NUMERICAL ANALYSIS
• *TROPICAL CYCLONES
• *VORTICES
• AXISYMMETRIC FLOW
• AZIMUTH
• BOUNDARY LAYER
• COMPUTERIZED SIMULATION
• HEAT BALANCE
• LOW STRENGTH
• MATHEMATICAL PREDICTION
• MESOSPHERE
• METEOROLOGICAL DATA
• OCEAN CURRENTS
• QUALITATIVE ANALYSIS
• THERMODYNAMIC PROPERTIES
• WEATHER FORECASTING
• WIND VELOCITY

Subject Categories:

• Atmospheric Physics
• Meteorology
• Physical and Dynamic Oceanography

Distribution Statement:

APPROVED FOR PUBLIC RELEASE