Reply to a comment by J. L. McBride

Open Access
Publisher Website
Google Scholar
Abstract
Our recent paper “Simulation of humcane-type vortices in a general circulation model”, was written with the prime objective to report that global general circulation models (GCM) can generate disturbances which have phenomenological similarities to tropical cyclones. We believe this is important, since modellers of tropical cyclones, with a few exceptions (Manabe et al., 1970). have never previously succeeded in simulating intense tropical warm-core vortices with a GCM type of model. Important as it is, we have no expectation that present GCM’s in general can be used for operational predictions of hurricanes/ typhoons per se; to achieve this a much higher resolution will be required and possibly also a data assimilation procedure including cloud and moisture. This has been made very clear in B82, where we have stated “it is not the basic purpose of this paper that models with a resolution such as the ECMWF model should be used to predict tropical cyclones, but merely to point out a very interesting behaviour of high resolution GCM’s”. DOI: 10.1111/j.1600-0870.1984.tb00228.x