Intensity Estimation Associated with Tropical Cyclone 'Megh' by The
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INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF EARTH AND ATMOSPHERIC SCIENCE Journal homepage: www.jakraya.com/journal/ ijeas ORIGINAL ARTICLE Intensity Estimation Associated with Tropical Cyclone ‘Megh’ by the Spatial Distribution of Wind Shear and CAPE Sushil Kumar 1*, Ashish Routray 2, P.V.S. Raju 3 and Bhanumati Panda 4 1*Department of Applied Mathematics, School of Vocational Studies and Applied Sciences, Gautam Buddha University, Greater Noida-201312, India. 2National Centre for Medium Range Weather Forecasting (NCMRWF), A-50, Sector 62, Noida 201309, India. 3Centre for Ocean Atmospheric Science and Technology, Amity University Rajasthan, NH-11C, Kant Kalwar, Jaipur, India. 4Department of Applied Science and Humanities, I.T.S Engineering College, Greater Noida, U.P-201308, India. Abstract Vertical wind shear and Convective Available Potential Energy (CAPE) are of those mainly significant parameters which affect the intensity of a tropical cyclone (TC). The TCs are categorized as having large or small ambient vertical wind shear. Highly sheared tropical storms produce larger area-averaged CAPE versus relatively un-sheared storms. The vortex-scale increase in the quantities lessens the negative impact of *Corresponding Author: large vertical wind shear. The effects of wind shear on TC genesis is explored from climatological perspective. The physical process of TC Sushil Kumar genesis in wind shear is reconnoitered for Extremely Severe Tropical Cyclone Megh (2015) over the Arabian Sea with high-resolution numerical Email: [email protected] simulation using a mesoscale model in an idealized framework. The simulation study results that in terms of the formation of a closed, low-level Submitted: 20/01/2018 circulation, moderate wind shear is indeed more conducive to genesis, but Accepted: 15/06/2018 is also very prohibitive to further development of the cyclone. The reasons for the greater favorableness of vertical wind shear versus no wind shear, and of westerly shear versus easterly shear, are discussed briefly in the context in a reasonable sense. Based on the spatial plots of CAPE, zonal wind shear and vertical wind shear, it is clearly seen that the TC Megh is most intense on 08 November but due to a gradual increase in the wind shear it lost the intensity and started to be dissipated towards the land-fall. Keywords: Tropical cyclone, CAPE, Wind shear, Arabian Sea. 1. Introduction density along the coast, apart from comparatively Bay of Bengal (BoB) and Arabian Sea (AS) are higher track prediction errors for damaging the life and contributing about 7% of total tropical cyclones (TCs) property due to TCs nearby the regions. Hence, for over the world (WMO technical report 2008). planning and implementation of the mitigation However, BoB is facing more frequently TCs both in measures effectively, it is desirable to reasonably general and land-falling and hence causes more correct prediction of track, intensity, and associated disasters than the AS TCs (IMD, 2008). Arabian Sea is post cyclone effects of these devastating storms at least also facing all types of TCs time to time and land- in 48 h advance to save the loss of life and property falling TCs over the AS has shown a steady increase significantly. Though, there has been substantial due to the growing population and development near progress in the forecast of related fields of TCs using the coastal area. Various researchers (Mohanty and various global and mesoscale models, still there is lot Gupta, 1997; Gupta, 2006) have found that predicting of scope for the improvement of the performance of track and intensity beyond 24h over the NIO (including these numerical weather prediction models. Many Bay of Bengal (BoB) and Arabian Sea (AS)) have lot attempts have been done to improve the efficiency of of limitations using synoptic and statistical methods. the models by improving grid resolution, physical There are various factors like poor socio-economic parameterizations, different combinations of the conditions, shallow bathymetry, and huge population schemes and data assimilation, etc. For the International Journal of Earth and Atmospheric Science | April-June, 2018 | Volume 05 | Issue 02 | Pages 94-100 © 2018 Jakraya Kumar et al… Intensity Estimation Associated with Tropical Cyclone ‘Megh’ by the Spatial Distribution of Wind Shear and CAPE development and intensification of TCs (Anthes, 1982), weakened rapidly to SCS to CS on next day and deep one of the important aspects is the procedure of depression (DD) at 0600 UTC of 10 th . Finally, it physical parameterizations in terms of surface fluxes crossed to Yemen coast near latitude 13.4°N and of heat, moisture, momentum, cumulus convection, and longitude 46.1°E around 0900 UTC 10 th as a DD after vertical mixing in the planetary boundary layer (PBL). recurving to northeastwards and on same day slow Due to generation of the huge fluxes of heat, moisture, down to depression. It continued to a well-marked low and momentum, PBL is a significant factor for study pressure area over Yemen and neighborhood at 1800 (Braun and Tao, 2000). Hence, many PBL UTC of 10 th and cyclone Megh occurred back to back parameterization schemes (PBLSs) is included in the just after a week of formation after Chapala. NWP models (Mellor and Yamada, 1982; Hong et al., 2006). Various cumulus parameterization schemes 3. WRF Modeling System (CPSs) is also developed to resolve the issue of very Present study is based on using Advanced small scale of convective clouds in the numerical Weather Research and Forecast model version 3.2.1 models and included into three-dimensional mesoscale which is developed at the National Center for models (Kuo, 1974; Arakawa and Schubert, 1974; Atmospheric Research (NCAR) with the collaboration Anthes, 1977; Betts and Miller, 1986; Kain and Fritsch, many other organizations namely National Oceanic and 1993; Grell, 1993) and mostly these schemes applied Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), the National for specific convective environment (Grell, 1993; Kuo Center for Environmental Prediction (NCEP), and et al., 1996). Raju et al. (2012) simulated the four various universities (Dudhi, 2004). Non-hydrostatic severe TCs over the BoB during the 2007-2010 using mesoscale WRF model is designed for fine-scale WRF (ARW) models and concluded that the model atmospheric phenomena of few kilometers or less well predicted the cyclone track, intensity in terms of horizontal grid lengths (Michalakes et al., 2005; central pressure, maximum sustained winds, and Skamarock et al., 2005). Eulerian mass dynamical core precipitation reasonably. is used with Arakawa C-grid staggering with terrain- In this study, extremely severe tropical cyclone following hybrid sigma-pressure vertical coordinates ‘Megh’ is considered formed over the Arabian Sea and for time integration Runge-Kutta 2 nd and 3 rd order during November 2015 to examine the performance of schemes are used. Advection schemes are used from WRF-ARW core model in terms of wind shear, 2nd to 6 th order in both the horizontal and vertical intensity and CAPE. Section 2 contains a brief directions with a time-split small step for acoustic and description of synoptic features of the ‘Megh’ cyclone, gravity-wave modes (Skamarock and Klemp, 2008). while in Section 3, details of the WRF modeling Raju et al. (2011) carried out sensitivity experiments system. The results of the model simulations are based on cumulus convection, PBL schemes, and presented for weather parameters such as wind shear, microphysics schemes and found that YSU PBL, Kain- strong winds, mean sea level pressure associated with Fritsch Convective schemes and Ferrier microphysics the ‘Megh’ cyclone and CAPE analysis. Section 4 and schemes are simulating Bay of Bengal cyclone Nargis. Section 5 provides a detailed discussion of the results Sateesh et al (2017) found that YSU schemes produced and concluding remarks respectively. a better simulation for the THANE cyclone in terms of winds, pressure distribution and cloud fractions against 2. Synoptic Features of Severe Cyclone MYJ scheme. In this study, convective ‘Megh’ Over Arabian Sea during Nov, parameterization of Kain-Fritsch new Eta scheme 2015 (Kain and Fritsch, 1993), the planetary Yonsei A Low level circulation is started over University (YSU) of boundary layer and microphysics Lakshadweep and nearby and formed into depression schemes of Ferrier (new Eta) and Dudhia shortwave over the east-central Arabian Sea (AS) at 0000 UTC of radiation scheme (Dudhia, 1989) is used in the simulation of ‘Megh’ TC. NCEP global operational 5th November 2015 and became cyclonic storm (CS) at 0 1200 UTC of 5 th November after moving analysis at 1X1 horizontal resolutions are used for westwards/west-southwestwards. On 0600 UTC of 7 th , initial inputs for the cyclone simulations and lateral boundary conditions are taken from the NCEP-GFS intensified into severe cyclonic storm (SCS) towards 0 west-southwestward and became a very severe cyclonic data for the time-varying at 6-h intervals. USGS at 10 storm (VSCS) at 1500 UTC of 7 th at 1500 UTC and resolutions data are used for model topography and within 10-12 hours, storm intensified into an extremely simulations are compared from the IMD observations. severe cyclonic storm (ESCS) at 0300 UTC of 8 th for Model configuration is given in Table 1 which is used next 06 hours. Then, it became down to VSCS at 0000 for simulation of ‘Megh’ TC. UTC of 9 th and moved towards west-northwestward. It International Journal of Earth and Atmospheric Science | April-June,