Impact of Air-Sea Interaction on Tropical Cyclone Intensity

Real-time forecasts using the fully Coupled Ocean/Atmosphere Mesoscale Prediction System – Tropical Cyclone (COAMPS-TCTM) were conducted at the Naval Research Laboratory over the Western Pacific in support of the Office of Naval Research (ONR)'s field experiment Impact of Typhoon on the Ocean in the Pacific (ITOP) conducted in the summer of 2010. The goal of this study is to examine the impact of the air-sea interaction on the intensity and structure of Typhoon Fanapi (2010). A comparison of the coupled vs. uncoupled with fixed sea surface temperature (SST) is used to examine the impact of SST change through the air-sea flux. The impact of the different planetary boundary layer (PBL) schemes on TC intensity and structure will be explored. The observational data from ITOP field experiment will be used to study air-sea interaction processes and to examine model PBL parameterizations.