On the sensitivity of hurricane intensity and structure to horizontal tracer advection schemes in FV3
Gao, K., Harris, L., Zhou, L., Bender, M., & Morin, M. (2021). On the sensitivity of hurricane intensity and structure to horizontal tracer advection schemes in FV3. Journal Of The Atmospheric Sciences, 78, 3007-3021. doi:10.1175/JAS-D-20-0331.1
We investigate the sensitivity of hurricane intensity and structure to the horizontal tracer advection in the Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory (GFDL) Finite-Volume Cubed-Sphere Dynamical Core (FV3). We compare two schemes, a monotonic scheme and a less diffusive positive-definite scheme. The... Show moreWe investigate the sensitivity of hurricane intensity and structure to the horizontal tracer advection in the Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory (GFDL) Finite-Volume Cubed-Sphere Dynamical Core (FV3). We compare two schemes, a monotonic scheme and a less diffusive positive-definite scheme. The positive-definite scheme leads to significant improvement in the intensity prediction relative to the monotonic scheme in a suite of 5-day forecasts that mostly consist of rapidly intensifying hurricanes. Notable storm structural differences are present: the radius of maximum wind (RMW) is smaller and eyewall convection occurs farther inside the RMW when the positive-definite scheme is used. Moreover, we find that the horizontal tracer advection scheme affects the eyewall convection location by affecting the moisture distribution in the inner-core region. This study highlights the importance of dynamical core algorithms in hurricane intensity prediction. Show less