Impact of the Advanced Microwave Sounding Unit Measurements on Hurricane Prediction

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Abstract
Due to the lack of meteorological observations over the tropical oceans, almost all the current hurricane models require bogusing of a vortex into the large-scale analysis of the model initial state. In this study, an algorithm to construct hurricane vortices is developed using the Advanced Microwave Sounding Unit (AMSU-A) data. Under rain-free atmospheric conditions, the temperature profile could be retrieved with a root-mean-square error of 1.5°C. Under heavy rainfall conditions, measurements from channels 3–5 are removed in retrieving temperatures. An application of this algorithm to Hurricane Bonnie (1998) shows well the warm-core eye and strong thermal gradients across the eyewall. The rotational and divergent winds are obtained by solving the nonlinear balance and omega equations using the large-scale analysis as the lateral boundary conditions. In doing so, the sea level pressure distribution is empirically specified, and the geopotential heights are calculated from the retrieved temperatu... Abstract Due to the lack of meteorological observations over the tropical oceans, almost all the current hurricane models require bogusing of a vortex into the large-scale analysis of the model initial state. In this study, an algorithm to construct hurricane vortices is developed using the Advanced Microwave Sounding Unit (AMSU-A) data. Under rain-free atmospheric conditions, the temperature profile could be retrieved with a root-mean-square error of 1.5°C. Under heavy rainfall conditions, measurements from channels 3–5 are removed in retrieving temperatures. An application of this algorithm to Hurricane Bonnie (1998) shows well the warm-core eye and strong thermal gradients across the eyewall. The rotational and divergent winds are obtained by solving the nonlinear balance and omega equations using the large-scale analysis as the lateral boundary conditions. In doing so, the sea level pressure distribution is empirically specified, and the geopotential heights are calculated from the retrieved temperatu...