Addressing Hurricane Intensity through Angular Momentum and Scale Energetics Approaches

This paper addresses two avenues for gaining insight into the hurricane intensity issue—the angular momentum approach and the scale interaction approach. In the angular momentum framework, the torques acting on a parcel’s angular momentum are considered along an inflowing trajectory in order to construct the angular momentum budget. These torques are separable into three components: The pressure torque, the surface friction torque, and the cloud torque. All torques are found to diminish the angular momentum of an inflowing parcel, with the cloud torques having the most important role. In the scale interaction approach, energy exchanges among different scales within a hurricane are considered as a means of understanding hurricane intensity. It is found that the majority of kinetic energy contribution to the hurricane scales originates from potential-to-kinetic in-scale energy conversions. The contribution of mean-wave interactions in the kinetic energy varies with distance from the center and with the life stage of a storm. In the early stages, as the disorganized convection becomes organized on the hurricane scales, upscale energy transfers (i.e., from small to large scale) are found to take place in the outer radii of the storm. In a mature storm, the kinetic energy transfers are downscale, except for the inner radii.