Tropical Cyclone Modeling: A Tribute to Rick Anthes (Invited Presentation)

Rick Anthes has made many seminal contributions to modeling tropical cyclones (TCs) and midlatitude mesoscale weather systems during the past five decades. Beginning in the late 1960s, Rick started developing a two-dimensional, meridionally symmetric, variable grid TC model (Anthes 1970), at NOAA’s National Hurricane Research Laboratory in Miami, Florida. Shortly after, he made an important milestone in modeling TCs by developing the first successful three-dimensional (3D) model of TCs (Anthes et al. 1971; Anthes 1972). As a consequence, we see a gradual transition in the literature from modeling essential axisymmetric structures of TCs to more complete 3D spiral rainbands, asymmetric outflow, hurricane eye, and the β-drift effect on TC tracks. Meanwhile, various 3D TC models were developed and run in real time at some meteorological centers that were capable of improving TC track forecasts over those made subjectively or statistically for time periods beyond 24 h.

In the subsequent years, Rick has pioneered in developing (i) data assimilation techniques to improve the representation of TC vortices and their environmental flows in the model initial conditions (Anthes 1974); (ii) a convective parameterization scheme, derived from a one-dimensional cloud model, to improve the vertical profile of latent heat release in TCs (Anthes 1977); (iii) a coupled ocean model to include the mutual response of the TC and ocean (Chang and Anthes 1979); and (iv) a high-resolution PBL parameterization scheme to better represent the air-sea interaction and vertical energy transfer from the underlying ocean (Zhang and Anthes 1982). After the fruitful years of research, Rick authored a great reference book on the modeling and understanding of TCs (Anthes 1982).

Rick is well known as the father of the world's most widely used mesoscale model, the Penn State-NCAR mesoscale model (MM), which has evolved from his earlier 3D TC model, MM0, to MM1 and MM5, as he extended his research interests into mesoscale meteorology after moving to the Penn State University. This widely-used model has eventually evolved to today’s Weather Research and Forecast (WRF) model, in which many physics routines and diagnostic packages were taken from the latest version of MM5. Rick was also one of the originators of developing community mesoscale models including MM5 and WRF. In particular, his real-data modeling research has inspired many subsequent generations of TC modelers, including myself, to devote much of their efforts to this exciting TC modeling field, which have advanced TC prediction from the statistically-based prior to 1980’s to today’s high-resolution global models and cloud-permitting regional models.

Personally, I have been both fortunate and grateful for being long closely associated with Rick. To me, he is not only an innovative and highly accomplished scientific leader but also a great mentor. In particular, his hand-plotted 3D TC trajectory diagram (Anthes et al. 1971), based on his 30×30×3, 30-km resolution TC model, has inspired me to push any available computing power to its limit in order to obtain ultra-high resolution (now up to 0.33 km) cloud-permitting simulations for studying the inner-core dynamical processes leading to the rapid intensity and structural changes of TCs (see Fig. 1)

References

Anthes, R. A., 1970: Numerical experiments with a two-dimensional horizontal variable grid. Mon. Wea. Rev., 98, 810-822.

Anthes, R. A., J. W. Trout, and S. S. Ostlund, 1971: Three-dimensional particle trajectories in a model hurricane. Weatherwise, 24, 174-178.

Anthes, R. A., S. L. Rosenthal, and J. W. Trout, 1971: Preliminary results from an asymmetric model of the tropical cyclone. Mon. Wea. Rev., 99, 759-766.

Anthes, R. A., 1972: Development of asymmetries in a three-dimensional numerical model of the tropical cyclone. Mon. Wea. Rev., 100, 461-476.

Anthes, R. A., 1974: Data assimilation and initialization of hurricane prediction models. J. Atmos. Sci., 31, 702-719.

Anthes, R. A., 1977: A cumulus parameterization scheme utilizing a one-dimensional cloud model. Mon. Wea. Rev., 105, 270-286.

Anthes, R. A., 1982: Tropical Cyclones – Their Evolution, Structure, and Effects. Monograph No. 41, Amer. Meteor. Soc., 208 pp.

Chang, S. W., and R. A. Anthes, 1979: The mutual response of the tropical cyclone and the ocean. J. Phys. Oceanography, 9, 129-135.

Qin, N., and D.-L. Zhang, 2018: On the extraordinary intensification of Hurricane Patricia (2015). Part I: Numerical experiments. Wea. Forecasting, 33, 1205-1224.

Zhang, D., and R. A. Anthes, 1982: A high-resolution model of the planetary boundary layer – Sensitivity tests and comparisons with SESAME-79 data. J. Applied Meteor. 21, 1594-1609.