Marine Meteorology 1 Ronald J. Ferek, Ph.D. Marine Meteorology Program March 5, 2013 Tropical Cyclone Research Sponsored by the Office of Naval Research

Marine Meteorology 2 Marine Meteorology Overview Marine Meteorology--Navy-Unique Forecast Location: Global to Local, rapid response anywhere Navy Operates in the MABL NWP and Ocean Prediction are 2 of the 4 Core Competencies of NMOC (production centers at FNMOC and NAVO) Vertical integration from S&T to Operations (R2O) Current Research Emphases Air-Sea interaction, coupled modeling Next-generation global coupled NWP (ESPC talk in later session) State-of-the-art DA and exploitation of quantitative remote sensing Tropical cyclone genesis, structure, intensity and modeling –WestPac emphasis to support JTWC mission Core programs have decreased in favor of Research Initiatives Focus effort on difficult problems, opportunities to advance the science, logical progression, exploit discoveries for transition to operations (impact) Examples: TCM-90, CBLAST, TCS-08, ITOP, TCI-14

Marine Meteorology 3 Why we do TC research Tropical cyclone tracks: DOD is vulnerable

Marine Meteorology Why we do TC research Fleet priority since WWII Establishment of JTWC in 1959 TC Research an ONR program thrust since goal set by CINCPACFLT: reduce 72h track error to 150nm  Research focused on track in ‘80s and early ‘90s  Goal achieved in 2002 “Tropical cyclones…continue to be the most disruptive and devastating peacetime threat affecting operations within the USPACOM AOR”—Capt. John O’Hara, Fleet Oceanographer New USPACOM TC Forecasting Goals issued in 2009  Reduce position errors to 75nm at 72 hr, 150nm at 120hr and 200nm at 168hr  Predict the radius of 35 and 50kt winds within 20% through 168hr  Develop products that display uncertainty in a dynamic and probabilistic sense  Forecast the intensity (max winds) to within 20% at 168hr

Marine Meteorology Legacy (and Impact) of ONR Tropical Cyclone Field Experiments TROPICAL CYCLONE MOTION (TCM-90) First international tropical cyclone field experiment with special observations from NASA DC-8, Japanese weather ships (3), Russian oceanographic ships (4), and Taiwan collaborators Accomplishments: - Documented three-dimensional structure of steering flow in monsoon environment - Documented TC beta-effect propagation as function of outer vortex wind structure - Documented 3-D structure of Supertyphoon Flo with minimum pressure of 891 mb - Documented ocean response to typhoons TROPICAL CYCLONE MOTION (TCM-92, TCM-93) - Follow-on experiments with two USAF Reserve C-130s - Documented role of monsoon depressions in typhoon formation - Documented role of mesoscale convective systems in typhoon formation Impact: Led to significant advances in track forecasting at JTWC and achieved the 1984 goal set by CINCPACFLT in

Marine Meteorology TCM Impact: Reduction of JTWC Track Errors (Western North Pacific Hours) Annual errors are at all time low values But…5 yr averages are not decreasing TCM-90 Appl. res.

Marine Meteorology 7 Motivation: Few observations and little understanding of air-sea transfer processes in very low ( 30 m/s) wind regimes Major Performers: WHOI, SIO, UWash, OSU, UH, UMiami, URI, UWisc, MIT, NRL, NASA, NOAA OBJECTIVE: Understand the physical processes of air-sea interaction at low and very high wind conditions Hurricane component of CBLAST Initial 5-year program to measure, analyze and understand the critical air-sea coupling at hurricane winds 2-yr follow-on effort to exploit findings and develop advanced parameterizations Legacy (and Impact) of ONR TC Field Experiments ONR CBLAST DRI, Accomplishments: Development of new wave-modulated drag parameterizations resulted in first ever realistic model simulations of TC intensity Impact: Began applied research to develop an operational capability (COAMPS-TC) for predicting TC intensity. Led to improvements in a number of other mesoscale TC models. (Now a major activity in the HFIP program)

Marine Meteorology TCS-08 DRI: The Impact of Storm-Scale Processes on the Predictability of Western Pacific Typhoons GOAL: to reduce errors in TC structure and intensity forecasts by 50% within a decade Problem: Cannot predict the evolution of disturbances in the monsoon trough over the western North Pacific (genesis, structure & intensity changes, outer winds, etc.) Approach: Conducted field experiments in Aug-Sept 08 to examine the evolution of Westpac TCs from genesis to fully mature storms. An integrated effort of research flights, remotely sensed atmosphere and ocean observations, and testing in a coupled ocean-wave-atmosphere modeling system (COAMPS-TC). Impact: Increased predictability of environmental factors that influence tropical cyclone formation, the evolution of the outer- wind structure, and of factors that determine ET or landfall. TY Fred o Guam Philippines Pre-TY Harry Pre-TY Gladys

Marine Meteorology Operations center, NPS, Monterey, CA Driftsonde center, Driftsonde Balloon release, Hawaii Aircraft locations, and aircraft operations centers Guam Japan Taiwan Okinawa Tropical Cyclone Structure-08 Experiment (TCS-08) Partnership withTHORPEX-Pacific Asian Regional Campaign (T-PARC) 9 participating nations – Canada, China, U.K., France, Germany, Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, United States Over 500 aircraft mission flight hours – 216 C-130, 179 P-3, 83 Falcon, 37 DOTSTAR 76 missions – 25 Falcon, 23 C-130, 21 P-3, 7 DOTSTAR 7 airfields – Andersen AFB, Guam; NAF Atsugi, Japan; Kadena AFB, Okinawa, Japan; Taiwan, Yokota AFB, Japan; MCAS Iwakuni, Japan; Misawa AB, Japan 11 tropical circulation systems – 4 typhoons, 1 TD, 1 ex-TS, 5 others

Marine Meteorology TCS-08: Examined the entire lifecycle of a tropical cyclone (formation, intensification, and structure change) TY Sinlaku aircraft sampling (9-21 Sept 2008) NRL P-3 C-130 DOTSTAR DLR F-20 Guam Okinawa Taiwan Japan

Marine Meteorology 11 COAMPS Prediction of Typhoon Jangmi Initial Time: 0000 UTC 26 September km grid is stationary, 15 and 5 km grids move with the TC Initial Grid Set-up COAMPS Forecast Track (red) and Official Warning Positions (black) plotted every 12 hours (dots) 24h959mb 48h/916mb 72h/913mb 24h/925mb 48h/916mb 72h/985mb 0h COAMPS-TC forecast Jangmi intensification at 48h, but moved Jangmi slower and more northward than observed, keeping the system stronger than observed since the predicted track did not take Jangmi over land Animation of COAMPS predicted radar reflectivity every 30 minutes on 5 km moving grid (24-72 h)

Marine Meteorology NWS Radar Composite 1148 UTC 27August 2011 COAMPS-TC (36 h) COAMPS-TC Highlight Real-Time Hurricane Irene Forecasts Impact: Realistic precipitation shield, structure and intensity forecasts COAMPS-TC did very well for Intensity during 2011, especially for Irene

Marine Meteorology 13 TCS-08 Accomplishments First major WestPAC experiment since TCM93 First observations of a WestPAC TC life-cycle First systematic targeting operation in the WestPAC First four plane operation in a WestPAC TC First systematic observations of full extratropical transition process First operation of the Driftsonde in the Pacific First use of the ELDORA radar in typhoons over the western North Pacific flight operations in: First buoy drop in front of a WestPAC TC First msmts. to validate new and advanced satellite obs. of WP TCs First detailed (i.e., in situ aircraft, dual-doppler radar, dropsonde, lidar) observations of: –Large scale environmental influences –Tropical cyclone formation in the monsoon environment of the tropical WestPAC –Structure changes during the initial tropical cyclone intensification First measurements to define the response of the outer wind structure to changes in intensity and eyewall replacement cycles Successful relay of research dropsondes to the ground and onto GTS in near real time

Marine Meteorology 14 Resources ITOP 2010 Observations

Marine Meteorology Understanding and Predicting the Impact of Outflow on Tropical Cyclone Intensification and Structure (“TCI-14”) An FY14 ONR Departmental Research Initiative Ronald J. Ferek and Daniel P. Eleuterio, 322MM 13 December 2012

Marine Meteorology TC Structure and Recent Research Programs Image courtesy of NASA Primary circulation Unexplored: Outflow structure, intensity, and variability, and relationships with hurricane intensity and structure NSF RAINEX Secondary Circulation ONR TCS08 ONR TCS08 NSF TPARC NSF TPARC NOAA IFEX NOAA IFEX NASA GRIP NASA GRIP NSF PREDICT ONR TCS08 ONR TCS08 NSF TPARC NSF TPARC NOAA IFEX NOAA IFEX NASA GRIP NASA GRIP NSF PREDICT ONR CBLAST ONR CBLAST ONR TCS-08 ONR TCS-08 ONR ITOP

Marine Meteorology Outflow & Intensification Typhoon Roke Pre-Rapid Intensification 00 UTC 19 Sep 2011 Intensity = 65 kt Winds: mb, mb, mb mb Divergence Upper-Level Jet Upper-Level Jet Roke Outflow Outflow directed equatorward No interaction between outflow and approaching upper-level jet Weak upper-level divergence Weak typhoon

Marine Meteorology mb Divergence Outflow & Intensification Typhoon Roke Rapid Intensification 00 UTC 20 Sep 2011 (+24h) Intensity = 115 kt Outflow shifts poleward Outflow couples with midlatitude jet Upper-level divergence triples Roke underwent Rapid Intensification, increased intensity by 50 kts in 24 hours Upper-Level Jet Upper-Level Jet Roke Outflow Winds: mb, mb, mb Roke Models (including COAMPS-TC) failed to capture this RI

Marine Meteorology Opportunity: NASA HS3 Field Program Global Hawk Ops Center during HS3  Environmental Payload: cloud/aerosol lidar, dropsondes, wind lidar, remote sounders  Over-storm Payload: HAMSR (multi-level water vapor), HIWRAP (surface and multi-level wind velocity and rain rate), HIRAD (surface wind speed, rain rate), dropsondes TWO Global Hawks will fly to sample the environment and inner- core NASA Global Hawk at Wallops Advantages: long duration and high- altitude obs.

Marine Meteorology Cross Section 6 sondes HS3 Observations of Leslie’s Outflow at 150 mb X Leslie Center

Marine Meteorology HS3 Observations of Leslie’s Outflow 7 Sep Z Black, Red, Blue and Pink lines: Global Hawk observed wind speed and temperature profiles along jet maximum from dropsondes Red line: Satellite wind speed vertical average Green line: COAMPS-TC model wind speed profile Solid black: Tropopause Dashed: Cirrus top / jet max Dotted: Cirrus cloud base Yellow shading: Cloud Physics Lidar (CPL) domain

Marine Meteorology Impact of HS3 Dropsondes for Nadine Track Error (nm) Intensity: Max. Wind Error (kts) Intensity: Min. SLP Error (hPa) Bias (dash) HS3 drops No drops HS3 drops No drops HS3 drops No drops Bias (dash) Dropsonde impact experiments performed for Sep. (3 flights) -Red, with HS3 drops -Blue, No drops with synthetics COAMPS-TC Intensity and Track skill are improved greatly through assimilation of HS3 Drops.

Marine Meteorology At ONR we try to focus initiatives on problems that advance the science and have impact (collaborate/leverage other agencies) TC motion (academia, NASA, international collaborators, USAF) Physics of the air-sea interface (academia, NOAA, NASA, USAF) Storm-scale structure (academia, NSF, NOAA, USAF, international collaborators) Interaction with the ocean (academia, NSF, international collaborators, USAF) Strategy: increase understanding of the dynamic processes and represent them in models, exploit the results to improve prediction systems Vertically integrated process from basic research to applied research to advanced development and transition to operations Fruitful collaboration with NOAA’s HFIP utilizing NOPP process for joint funding of a number of academic/Gov. lab partnership projects Next initiative: Leverage the unprecedented opportunity to deploy two NASA Global Hawks to observe hurricane intensity, interactions between storms, outflow and larger- scale environment (academia, NASA, NOAA, USAF, NSF international collaborators) Summary

Marine Meteorology Questions?