Open AccessSatellite analysis of tropical cyclones using NOAA-16 AMSU measurements over Indian region
Author(s) -
Devendra Singh,
R. C. Bhatia,
Saurabh Srivastava
Publication year - 2004
Publication title -
mausam
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.243
H-Index - 12
ISSN - 0252-9416
DOI - 10.54302/mausam.v55i1.962
Subject(s) - advanced microwave sounding unit , tropical cyclone , environmental science , climatology , depth sounding , cyclone (programming language) , anomaly (physics) , satellite , meteorology , tropical cyclogenesis , outgoing longwave radiation , tropical cyclone rainfall forecasting , atmospheric sciences , geology , geography , oceanography , physics , convection , condensed matter physics , field programmable gate array , computer science , computer hardware , astronomy
The first Advanced Microwave Sounding Unit (AMSU) was launched aboard NOAA-15 satellite on 13 May 1998. AMSU measurements are now also available from NOAA-16 and NOAA-17 satellites. The AMSU is well suited for the observation of tropical cyclones because the ice clouds that cover tropical cyclones do not significantly affect its measurements. In this paper the intensity of three tropical cyclones formed over Bay of Bengal and Arabian Sea in the month of October 1999, May and September 2001 were studied using AMSU measurements. The upper tropospheric warm core thermal anomalies over the tropical cyclone areas were computed from temperature profiles using the NOAA-15 and NOAA-16 AMSU-A measurements. It has been observed that the magnitude of the warm core temperature anomaly at about 250 hPa was an indicator of the intensity of tropical cyclones in all three cases. The order of the temperature anomaly was about 6oC in case of super tropical cyclone, 1999 while in other two cases the order of the temperature anomaly were of about 3oC for moderate tropical cyclones, 2001. Therefore, it may be stated that the AMSU data appeared to offer substantial opportunities for improvements in tropical cyclone analysis and forecasting.