Premium
A Preliminary Impact Study of CYGNSS Ocean Surface Wind Speeds on Numerical Simulations of Hurricanes
Author(s) -
Cui Zhiqiang,
Pu Zhaoxia,
Tallapragada Vijay,
Atlas Robert,
Ruf Christopher S.
Publication year - 2019
Publication title -
geophysical research letters
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 2.007
H-Index - 273
eISSN - 1944-8007
pISSN - 0094-8276
DOI - 10.1029/2019gl082236
Subject(s) - data assimilation , meteorology , tropical cyclone , environmental science , climatology , cyclone (programming language) , sea surface temperature , wind speed , numerical weather prediction , geology , computer science , geography , field programmable gate array , computer hardware
The NASA Cyclone Global Navigation Satellite System (CYGNSS) was launched in December 2016, providing an unprecedented opportunity to obtain ocean surface wind speeds including wind estimates over the hurricane inner‐core region. This study demonstrates the influence of assimilating an early version of CYGNSS observations of ocean surface wind speeds on numerical simulations of two notable landfalling hurricanes, Harvey and Irma (2017). A research version of the National Centers for Environmental Prediction operational Hurricane Weather Research and Forecasting model and the Gridpoint Statistical Interpolation‐based hybrid ensemble three‐dimensional variational data assimilation system are used. It is found that the assimilation of CYGNSS data results in improved track, intensity, and structure forecasts for both hurricane cases, especially for the weak phase of a hurricane, implying potential benefits of using such data for future research and operational applications.