Investigation of Ocean's Barrier Layer and Warm Ocean Feature on Tropical Cyclone's Intensity Change

Timely and accurate forecasts of tropical cyclones (TCs, i.e. hurricanes and typhoons) are of great importance for risk mitigation. Though in the past two decades there has been considerable, steady improvement in the track prediction, due to the complexity involved, improvement on intensity prediction remains a major challenge. One of the critical issues identified is the role ocean's surface and subsurface thermal conditions play in TC's intensity variability. Existing studies have suggested the importance of warm ocean features (e.g. eddies) to favor TC's intensification (Lin et al. 2008 and 2009). Recently Balaguru et al. (2012) reports on the importance of ocean's subsurface barrier layer to favor TC's intensification. Both processes emphasize on the suppression of TC-induced sea surface temperature cooling to favor intensification. This research compares the two effects and quantifies the difference in their impacts.