Roles of Barotropic Instability across the Moat in Inner Eyewall Decay and Outer Eyewall Intensification: Essential Dynamics

2021 ◽  
Vol 78 (5) ◽  
pp. 1411-1428
Author(s):  
Tsz-Kin Lai ◽  
Eric A. Hendricks ◽  
M. K. Yau ◽  
Konstantinos Menelaou

AbstractIntense tropical cyclones (TCs) often experience secondary eyewall formations and the ensuing eyewall replacement cycles. Better understanding of the underlying dynamics is crucial to make improvements to the TC intensity and structure forecasting. Radar imagery of some double-eyewall TCs and a real-case simulation study indicated that the barotropic instability (BI) across the moat (aka type-2 BI) may play a role in inner eyewall decay. A three-dimensional numerical study accompanying this paper pointed out that type-2 BI is able to withdraw the inner eyewall absolute angular momentum (AAM) and increase the outer eyewall AAM through the eddy radial transport of eddy AAM. This paper explores the reason why the eddy radial transport of eddy AAM is intrinsically nonzero. Linear and nonlinear shallow water experiments are performed and they produce expected evolutions under type-2 BI. It will be shown that only nonlinear experiments have changes in AAM over the inner and outer eyewalls, and the changes solely originate from the eddy radial transport of eddy AAM. This result highlights the importance of nonlinearity of type-2 BI. Based on the distribution of vorticity perturbations and the balanced-waves arguments, it will be demonstrated that the nonzero eddy radial transport of eddy AAM is an essential outcome from the intrinsic interaction between the mutually growing vortex Rossby waves across the moat under type-2 BI. The analyses of the most unstable mode support the findings and will further attribute the inner eyewall decay and outer eyewall intensification to the divergence and convergence of the eddy angular momentum flux, respectively.

Author(s):  
Tsz-Kin Lai ◽  
Eric A. Hendricks ◽  
Konstantinos Menelaou ◽  
M. K. Yau

AbstractRadar imagery of some double-eyewall tropical cyclones shows that the inner eyewalls became elliptical prior to their dissipation during the eyewall replacement cycles, indicating that the barotropic instability (BI) across the moat (a.k.a. type-2 BI) may play a role. To further examine the physics of inner eyewall decay and outer eyewall intensification under the influence of the type-2 instability, three-dimensional numerical experiments are performed. In the moist full-physics run, the simulated vortex exhibits the type-2 instability and the associated azimuthal wavenumber-2 radial flow pattern. The absolute angular momentum (AAM) budget calculation indicates, after the excitation of the type-2 instability, a significant intensification in the negative radial advection of AAM at the inner eyewall. It is further shown that the changes in radial AAM advection largely result from the eddy processes associated with the type-2 instability, and contribute significantly to the inner eyewall decay. The budget calculation also suggests that the type-2 instability can accelerate the inner eyewall decay in concert with the boundary layer cut-off effect. Another dry no-physics idealised experiment is conducted and the result shows that the type-2 instability alone is able to weaken the inner eyewall and also strengthen the outer eyewall with non-negligible effect.


2019 ◽  
Vol 76 (4) ◽  
pp. 989-1013
Author(s):  
Tsz-Kin Lai ◽  
Konstantinos Menelaou ◽  
M. K. Yau

Abstract Radar imagery of some double-eyewall tropical cyclones shows that the inner eyewalls become elliptical prior to their dissipation. These elliptical features indicate that the barotropic instability (BI) across the moat (aka, type-2 BI) may play a role in the process. To investigate the mechanism for dissipation, a WRF simulation of Hurricane Wilma (2005) is performed. The results reveal an elliptical elongation of the inner eyewall and a change in the structure of the radial flow from wavenumber (WN) 1 to WN 2 at the lower levels. A linear stability analysis as well as idealized nonlinear experiments using a nondivergent barotropic vorticity model initialized with the vorticity fields before the change in the dominant wavenumber of the radial flow are presented with the results supporting the presence of a type-2 BI at the lower levels. The accompanying WN-2 radial flow is also found to dilute the vorticity within the inner eyewall and the eye. However, this dilution is not seen at higher levels as the type-2 BI becomes weak and short lived at the middle levels and reaches its weakest strength at the upper levels. This phenomenon is traced to the fact that a higher growth rate comes with a narrower moat for type-2 BI. As the outward slope of the outer eyewall is larger than that of the inner eyewall, the moat width increases with height so that the growth rate decreases with height. The results presented here thus highlight the potential role played by the barotropic instability across the moat in inner eyewall dissipation.


Author(s):  
C. Abegg ◽  
Graham de Vahl Davis ◽  
W.J. Hiller ◽  
St. Koch ◽  
Tomasz A. Kowalewski ◽  
...  

2012 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
pp. 94-97
Author(s):  
Yu.A. Itkulova

In the present work creeping three-dimensional flows of a viscous liquid in a cylindrical tube and a channel of variable cross-section are studied. A qualitative triangulation of the surface of a cylindrical tube, a smoothed and experimental channel of a variable cross section is constructed. The problem is solved numerically using boundary element method in several modifications for a periodic and non-periodic flows. The obtained numerical results are compared with the analytical solution for the Poiseuille flow.


2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (8) ◽  
pp. 3404
Author(s):  
Majid Hejazian ◽  
Eugeniu Balaur ◽  
Brian Abbey

Microfluidic devices which integrate both rapid mixing and liquid jetting for sample delivery are an emerging solution for studying molecular dynamics via X-ray diffraction. Here we use finite element modelling to investigate the efficiency and time-resolution achievable using microfluidic mixers within the parameter range required for producing stable liquid jets. Three-dimensional simulations, validated by experimental data, are used to determine the velocity and concentration distribution within these devices. The results show that by adopting a serpentine geometry, it is possible to induce chaotic mixing, which effectively reduces the time required to achieve a homogeneous mixture for sample delivery. Further, we investigate the effect of flow rate and the mixer microchannel size on the mixing efficiency and minimum time required for complete mixing of the two solutions whilst maintaining a stable jet. In general, we find that the smaller the cross-sectional area of the mixer microchannel, the shorter the time needed to achieve homogeneous mixing for a given flow rate. The results of these simulations will form the basis for optimised designs enabling the study of molecular dynamics occurring on millisecond timescales using integrated mix-and-inject microfluidic devices.


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