Abstract
An analytical method for diagnosing the interaction between the primary and secondary circulations of a tropical cyclone (TC) and vortex intensification is developed. It includes a diagnostic equation describing the mean secondary circulation of a TC in an unbalanced framework by including the radial eddy forcing in the analytical system. It is an extension of the Sawyer-Eliassen equation (SEE) developed from the strict gradient-wind balance. This generalized SEE (GSEE) remediates some of the limitations of SEE and can be used to diagnose both balanced and unbalanced dynamical processes during the TC evolution. Using GSEE, this study investigates how the tangential and radial eddy forcing affects the TC intensification simulated by the Hurricane Research and Forecasting (HWRF) model with differently parameterized turbulent mixing. The diagnostic results show that the super-gradient component of radial eddy forcing contributes positively to the acceleration of the peak tangential wind, whereas the sub-gradient component of the radial eddy forcing tends to lower the height of peak tangential wind. The relative importance of negative and positive effects of tangential eddy forcing on TC intensification varies depending on the details of turbulence parameterization. For a turbulent kinetic energy (TKE) scheme used in this study, a large sloping curvature of mixing length in the low troposphere causes the tangential eddy forcing to produce a net positive tangential wind tendency near the location of the peak tangential wind. In contrast, a small sloping curvature of mixing length generates a net negative tangential wind tendency at the peak tangential wind.
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