Abstract
Although considerable progress has been made in understanding the development of hurricanes, our knowledge of their three-dimensional structures of latent heat release and inner-core thermodynamics remains limited. In this study, the inner-core budgets of potential temperature (θ), moisture (q), and equivalent potential temperature (θe) are examined using a high-resolution (Δx = 6 km), nonhydrostatic, fully explicit simulation of Hurricane Andrew (1992) during its mature or intensifying stage.
It is found that the heat energy is dominated by latent heat release in the eyewall, sublimative–evaporative cooling near the eye–eyewall interface, and the upward surface fluxes of sensible and latent heat from the underlying warm ocean. The latent heating (θ) rates in the eyewall range from less than 10°C h–1 to greater than 100°C h–1, depending upon whether latent heat is released in radial inflow or outflow regions. The latent heating rates decrease inward in the inflow regions and become negative near the eye–eyewall interface. It is shown that the radial θ advective cooling in the inflow regions accounts for the initiation and maintenance of the penetrative downdrafts at the eye–eyewall interface that are enhanced by the sublimative-evaporative cooling. It is also shown that the vertical θ advection overcompensates the horizontal θ advection for the generation of the warm-cored eye, and the sum of latent heating and radial advective warming for the development of intense cooling in the eyewall. The moisture budgets show the dominant upward transport of moisture in the eyewall updrafts (and spiral rainbands), partly by the low-level outflow jet from the bottom eye regions, so that the eyewall remains nearly saturated.
The θe budgets reveal that θe could be considered as an approximately conserved variable in the eyewall above the boundary layer even in the presence of deposition–sublimation and freezing–melting. The development of higher-θe surfaces at the eye–eyewall interface is discussed in the context of deep convection, the θe gradient and the mass recycling across the eyewall. It is concluded that the simulated hurricane is thermodynamically maintained by the upward surface flux of higher-θe air from the underlying warm ocean, the descent of higher-θe air in the upper troposphere along the eye–eyewall interface, and the recycling of some warmed-eye air at the eye–eyewall interface.
Corresponding author address: Dr. Da-Lin Zhang, Department of Meteorology, University of Maryland at College Park, College Park, MD 20742-2425. Email: dalin@atmos.umd.edu
