Theses and Dissertations

ORCID

https://orcid.org/0009-0009-6551-4487

Issuing Body

Mississippi State University

Advisor

Rudzin, Johna E.

Committee Member

Mercer, Andrew E.

Committee Member

Dyer, Jamie L.

Date of Degree

5-10-2024

Original embargo terms

Visible MSU only 6 month

Document Type

Graduate Thesis - Campus Access Only

Major

Geoscience (Professional Meteorology/Climatology)

Degree Name

Master of Science (M.S.)

College

College of Arts and Sciences

Department

Department of Geosciences

Abstract

Wind shear negatively impacts tropical cyclone (TC) intensity by disrupting the TC vortex and introducing lower equivalent potential temperature (θe) air, weakening the core. However, the ocean, a source of heat, aids in replenishing low θe boundary layer air, mitigating shear-induced ventilation effects. Favorable oceanic conditions, like higher sea-surface temperatures (SST), prevail in storm-relative motion quadrants not yet influenced by the TC. The interaction between storm-relative (e.g., SST) and shear-relative (e.g., ventilation) frameworks remains unclear. I propose an optimal overlap of shear-relative and motion-relative storm quadrants, where shear-induced weakening is minimized due to enhanced boundary layer recovery in a favorable ocean environment. This study presents a novel dataset comprising of co-located aircraft expendable bathythermographs (AXBT) and dropsondes from TROPIC and TC-DROPS datasets. Statistical analyses reveal air-sea correlations that cause up-shear and front-storm quadrant overlaps to be most beneficial to TC health, with investigation into the physical mechanisms driving these relationships.

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