Detecting tropical cyclone water vapor transportation with the TRMM and advanced microwave sounding unit (AMSU)

The AMSU-B data contain the vertical distribution of the retrieved water vapor from satellite brightness temperature. The tropical cyclone Matsa event in 2005 formed from the Northwest Pacific is analysed by combining the AMSU-B water vapor fields with the latent heat. Results show the combination the TRMM latent heating data in the heavy precipitation area around TC, we find heat release is one of the most important factors to impact TC intensity, especially to the long-life and land load TC. And there is a time delay between the low level water vapor convergence and the middle layer latent heat, which will improve the real-time forecast of tropical cyclones.