Abstract
The relationship between minimum sea level pressure (MSLP) and maximum wind speed, is a commonly employed metric for assessing tropical cyclone (TC) forecast skill. However, accurately reproducing this relationship in TC forecasts is challenging. By introducing a new air-sea momentum flux scheme considering both wave state and saturation (decrease) effect at high winds into a fully coupled atmosphere-ocean-wave model, our numerical results reveal that the maximum wind speed and MSLP respond oppositely to the air-sea momentum flux change. The simulated wind-pressure relationship aligns well with observations when the new flux scheme is used. This study highlights the large sensitivity of wind-pressure relationship to the air-sea momentum flux parameterization at high winds. Furthermore, the air-sea momentum flux has a significant effect on ocean wave characteristics and sea surface temperature (SST) cooling in TC simulations.
Although great progresses have been made in TC track forecasting in recent years, the improvement of TC intensity lags far behind that of TC track. One notable challenge is to represent the observed wind-pressure relationship. Utilizing a fully coupled atmosphere-ocean-wave model, this study suggests that the simulated wind-pressure relationship is tied to air-sea momentum flux configuration in the model. Our numerical results reveal that the maximum wind speed and minimum sea level pressure varies differently with the air-sea momentum flux. The proposed new air-sea momentum flux scheme successfully reproduced this relationship compared with observations. Wave properties and sea surface temperature response to momentum flux are also evaluated in this work. The findings emphasize the importance of understanding the air-sea interaction at high wind speeds for improving TC prediction.
The maximum wind speed and minimum sea level pressure (MSLP) respond oppositely to the air-sea momentum flux changes, considering both wave state effect and drag coefficient saturation (decrease) at high winds The maximum surface wind of tropical cyclone (TC) is more sensitive to the air-sea momentum flux than the MSLP The introduction of new air-sea momentum scheme at high winds enhances the representation of TC wind-pressure relationship and significant wave heights