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John O | October 2016

Thermal characteristics at core of tropical hurricanes


hurricane matthew has made its way through the tropics leaving considerable damage in its wake, particularly on the islands of cuba and haiti. as matthew bears down on florida and the east coast of the united states today and into the weekend, coolingzone offers a look into the thermal characteristics of these dangerous storms.

 

hurricane_600

(wikimedia commons)

 

hurricanes are fueled by warm, moist air that is converted into wind energy, which is why they form over the warm waters close to the equator. the warm air rises from the surface of the water, leaving an area of low pressure. air from surrounding areas moves in and the process repeats itself over and over with clouds forming and winds swirling while being continuously fed from the heat and evaporating air coming from the ocean below it. the storms can reach as many as nine miles into the atmosphere.

 

as meteorologist jeff masters, of the weather underground, explained, “they’re taking thermal energy and making mechanical energy out of it.”

 

hurricanscience.org said, “as an air parcel rises, it cools and expands until it becomes saturated with water vapor. at this point, the water vapor in the air parcel condenses to form cloud droplets. condensation releases the heat energy (latent heat) stored in the water vapor, increasing the buoyancy of the air. the air parcel will continue to rise until it cools to the point that it is colder than the surrounding environment. convection can form large clouds and thunderstorms, if there is enough initial heat and water vapor to allow the air parcels near the earth's surface to rise all the way to the tropopause.”

 

the storms form off the eastern coast of africa and are carried by the trade winds towards the west indies where hurricanes develop in the warm, moist air, gaining energy and destructive capability.

 

there have long been studies done on hurricanes to determine their causes, strengths, and potential paths. a paper released in august 1973 from flight data collected by the national hurricane research laboratory in miami, fla. explained the thermal stability and dynamic characteristics of the hurricane’s inner core region near the eye of the storm and the eye wall.

 

this paper can be read at http://journals.ametsoc.org/doi/pdf/10.1175/1520-0469(1973)030%3c1565%3athicri%3e2.0.co%3b2.

 

it concluded that there are substantial differences between storms and the dynamic conditions that lie at the heart of a hurricane make it difficult to predict the strength or track of a storm. according to the report, “the crucial physical feature appears to be the character of the accelerating inflowing boundary layer air…the authors hypothesize that these difference should be related to the surrounding broader scale flow patterns.”

 

a study conducted by researchers at rutgers university in 2011 was published just this summer and detailed why hurricanes appear to weaken before hitting land in the mid-atlantic region. the study concluded that even small shifts in the surface temperature can have “significant impacts on storm intensity.”

 

as the report read, “hurricane-intensity forecast improvements currently lag the progress achieved for hurricane tracks. integrated ocean observations and simulations during hurricane irene (2011) reveal that the wind-forced two-layer circulation of the stratified coastal ocean, and resultant shear-induced mixing, led to significant and rapid ahead-of-eye-centre cooling (at least 6 °c and up to 11 °c) over a wide swath of the continental shelf.

 

atmospheric simulations establish this cooling as the missing contribution required to reproduce irene’s accelerated intensity reduction. historical buoys from 1985 to 2015 show that ahead-of-eye-centre cooling occurred beneath all 11 tropical cyclones that traversed the mid-atlantic bight continental shelf during stratified summer conditions. a yellow sea buoy similarly revealed significant and rapid ahead-of-eye-centre cooling during typhoon muifa (2011).

 

these findings establish that including realistic coastal baroclinic processes in forecasts of storm intensity and impacts will be increasingly critical to mid-latitude population centres as sea levels rise and tropical cyclone maximum intensities migrate poleward.”

 

read the full report at http://www.nature.com/articles/ncomms10887.

 

while studies of these storms continue, hurricane matthew is looming on the coast of florida with sustained winds on average of more than 130 miles per hour. a state of emergency has been declared in 12 counties and states up the coast have prepared for the powerful storm as it approaches.

 

watch this national geographic video to learn more about hurricanes:

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