HAVE WE REACHED THE LIMITS OF PREDICTABILITY FOR TROPICAL CYCLONE TRACK FORECASTING?
HAVE WE REACHED THE LIMITS OF PREDICTABILITY FOR TROPICAL CYCLONE TRACK FORECASTING?
复制标题
DOI：
10.1175/bams-d-17-0136.1
复制
发表时间：
2018-11-01
影响因子：
8
通讯作者：
Cangialosi, John P.
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
Landsea, Christopher W.;Cangialosi, John P.
热带气旋是美国和世界范围内最大的单日影响气象事件，其影响包括风暴潮、极端大风、淡水洪水和嵌入式龙卷风。幸运的是，在过去的三十年里，预报的准确性取得了令人难以置信的进步，特别是热带气旋中心路径的预报。由于全球建模的进步、数据同化的改进、主要来自卫星平台的观测数据的急剧增加以及集合预报技术的使用，误差在短短 25 年内减少了三分之二。这四个因素使得高度准确的天气尺度大气初始条件和未来几天的转向流预测成为可能。然而，这种改进不可能无限期地持续下去。众所周知，大气科学存在固有的“可预测性极限”，因为最小尺度（微尺度米和秒）的误差最终会级联到最大尺度（天气尺度数千公里和几天）。虽然过去对热带气旋路径预测的可预测性极限进行了估计，但我们目前的能力已经超出了早期有些悲观的预期。本文讨论了热带气旋路径预测的最新技术，并重新评估是否即将达到“可预测性的极限”。无论是在短期还是几十年后，这一最终结论的影响对于热带气旋路径预报信息的所有用户（包括应急管理界/政府、媒体、私营部门和公众）都至关重要。
The tropical cyclone is the largest single-day-impact meteorological event in the United States and worldwide through its effects from storm surge, extreme winds, freshwater flooding, and embedded tornadoes. Fortunately, over the last three decades there have been incredible advances in forecast accuracy, especially for the track of the tropical cyclone's center. Errors have been cut by two-thirds in just 25 years due to global modeling advances, data assimilation improvements, dramatic increases in observations primarily derived from satellite platforms, and use of ensemble forecast techniques. These four factors have allowed for highly accurate synoptic-scale atmospheric initial conditions and forecasts of the steering flow out through several days into the future. However, such improvements cannot continue indefinitely. It is well known in the atmospheric sciences that there exists an inherent "limit of predictability" because of errors at the smallest scales (microscalemeters and seconds) that eventually cascade up to the largest scales (synoptic scale thousands of kilometers and several days). While there have been estimates of the limits of predictability for tropical cyclone track prediction in the past, our current capabilities have exceeded those somewhat pessimistic earlier outlooks. This essay discusses the current state of the art for tropical cyclone track prediction and reassesses whether reaching the "limit of predictability" is imminent. The ramifications of this eventual conclusion whether in the short-term or still decades away could be critical for all users of tropical cyclone track forecast information, including the emergency management community/governments, the media, the private sector, and the general public.