Analyzing the Multi-scale Interactions of Tropical Waves and Tropical Cyclone Formation with the NASA CMAVis System

Among the scenarios in the Decadal Survey (DS) Missions, the advanced data processing group at the ESTO AIST PI workshop identified "Extreme Event Warning" and "Climate Projections" as two of the top priority scenarios. Recently, we (e.g., Shen et al., 2010a,b; 2011a,b) have made attempt of addressing the first by successfully developing the NASA Coupled Advanced global multiscale Modeling and concurrent Visualization systems (CAMVis) on NASA supercomputers, and demonstrating a great potential for extending the lead time (from 5~7 days up to 20 days) of tropical cyclone (TC) prediction with improved multi-scale interactions between a TC with large-scale environmental conditions such as African Easterly Waves (AEWs), and Madden Julian Oscillation (MJOs). In order to increase our confidence in long-term TC prediction and thus TC climate projection, the predictive relationships between large-scale tropical waves and TC formation need to be further examined and verified with massive model and satellite data sets. To achieve this goal, we have conducted multiscale analysis to study the TC genesis processes, accompanied downscaling (from large-scale events) and upscaling (from small-scale events) processes, and their subsequent non-linear interactions. In this study, we first illustrate the complicated multi-scale interactions during TC genesis with our newly-developed 3D streamline packages in the NASA CAMVis system. With selected cases that include twin TCs in 2002, TC Nargis (2008) and hurricane Helene (2006), we will show that the CAMVis can provide a detailed (zoomed-in) view on hurricane physical processes and an integrative (zoomed-out) view on its interactions with environmental conditions. In the end of talk, we will discuss our future work in multiscale analysis with the Hilbert Huang Transform and improved ensemble empiric mode decomposition.