An Examination of the Predictability of Tropical Cyclone Genesis in High-Resolution Coupled Models with Dynamically Downscaled Coupled Data Assimilation Initialization (vol 37, pg 939, 2020)

Predicting tropical cyclone (TC) genesis is of great societal importance but scientifically challenging. It requires fine-resolution coupled models that properly represent air-sea interactions in the atmospheric responses to local warm sea surface temperatures and feedbacks, with aid from coherent coupled initialization. This study uses three sets of high-resolution regional coupled models (RCMs) covering the Asia-Pacific (AP) region initialized with local observations and dynamically downscaled coupled data assimilation to evaluate the predictability of TC genesis in the West Pacific. The AP-RCMs consist of three sets of high-resolution configurations of the Weather Research and Forecasting-Regional Ocean Model System (WRF-ROMS): 27-km WRF with 9-km ROMS, and 9-km WRF with 3-km ROMS. In this study, a 9-km WRF with 9-km ROMS coupled model system is also used in a case test for the predictability of TC genesis. Since the local sea surface temperatures and wind shear conditions that favor TC formation are better resolved, the enhanced-resolution coupled model tends to improve the predictability of TC genesis, which could be further improved by improving planetary boundary layer physics, thus resolving better air-sea and air-land interactions.