The long-term goals of this project, which is being pursued in collaboration with R. L. Elsberry and M. A. Boothe, are to improve not only the quantitative accuracy of official tropical cyclone (TC) track forecasts, but also the qualitative meteorological utility of those forecasts. Needed improvements in the accuracy of official TC track forecasts include: (i) reducing the severity and frequen...

The applicability of linearized axisymmetric dynamics to the intensification and structure change of tropical cyclones is investigated. The study is motivated by recent work that presented axisymmetric solutions to the linearized, non-hydrostatic, vortex-anelastic equations of motion (the so-called 3DVPAS model). The work called into question the importance of a recently proposed nonlinear, sys...

[1] Both El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO) and the Madden-Julian Oscillation (MJO) have previously been documented to impact Atlantic basin tropical cyclone (TC) activity through alterations in large-scale fields such as vertical wind shear, mid-level moisture, sea level pressure and sea surface temperature. Atlantic TC activity has been shown to be enhanced when La Niña conditions are presen...

In the first part of this chapter, we give a review of the relationship of climate and tropical cyclones on various time scales, from intra-seasonal to decadal. The response of tropical cyclone activity to natural modes of variability, such as El Niño-Southern Oscillation and the Madden Julian Oscillation in various regions of the world are discussed. Genesis location, track types and intensity...

Extreme wind loads used in design (e.g., the 50-yr wind load) and include nominal design wind loads ultimate wind loads. This paper briefly reviews the relationship between extreme wind loads and extreme wind speeds, assessments of epochal versus ‘peak-overthreshold’ approaches for estimating extreme non-tornadic winds in areas not subjected to tropical storms, and methods for estimating extrem...

carbonate materials are mostly found in tropical areas, where exploiting gas and oil resources are of high concern. their unique behavior under shear loading first was recognised during oil resources investigations in the persian gulf. off-shore structures have been placed on carbonate soils which are highly crushable.during storms cyclic loading imposes on the bases of structures lied down on ...

More than three decades of observations of tropical cyclone wind and wave fields have resulted in a detailed understanding of wave-growth dynamics, although details of the physics are still lacking. These observations are presented in a consistent manner, which provides the basis to be able to characterize the full wave spectrum in a parametric form throughout tropical cyclones. The data clearl...

The objective of this study is to understand how interactions with upper-tropospheric troughs affect the intensity of tropical cyclones. The study includes all named Atlantic tropical cyclones between 1985 and 1996. To minimize other factors affecting intensity change, times when storms are over subcritical sea surface temperatures (#268C) or near landfall are removed from the sample. A trough ...

Research investigating the importance of the subsurface ocean structure on tropical cyclone intensity change has been ongoing for several decades. While the emergence of altimetry-derived sea height observations from satellites dates back to the 1980s, it was difficult and uncertain as to how to utilize these measurements in operations as a result of the limited coverage. As the in situ measure...

Tropical cyclones have massive economic, social, and ecological impacts, and models of their occurrence influence many planning activities from setting insurance premiums to conservation planning. Most impact models allow for geographically varying cyclone rates but assume that individual storm events occur randomly with constant rate in time. This study analyzes the statistical properties of A...