Simulation of Marine Weather during an Extreme Rainfall Event: A Case Study of a Tropical Cyclone

Abstract

The ocean is the largest source of water vapor on the planet, while precipitation is the greatest in tropical oceans and coastal areas. As a strong convective weather, typhoons bring not only strong winds but also strong precipitations. The accurate prediction of rainfall and precipitation induced by typhoons is still difficult because of the nonlinear relationship between typhoon precipitation and physical processes such as typhoon dynamics, heat, cloud microphysics, and radiation. In order to fully describe the interaction between sea and air, we simulated rainfall distribution under the influence of a typhoon using a state-of-the-art, atmosphere–ocean-wave model considering a real typhoon over the South China Sea as a case study. The typhoon wind field, pressure field, and spatial and temporal distribution of rainfall were simulated on the basis of this coupled atmosphere–ocean-wave model. The spatial asymmetry distribution characteristics of typhoon wind field, pressure field, and rainfall were revealed by the simulation. The reasons for this asymmetric distribution were elaborated through a diagnostic analysis.