Collaborative Research: Towards Further Understanding of Aerosol Pollution Impacts on Tropical Cyclones

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A variety of human activities result in the transportation of different types of particles into the atmosphere. These particles, known as aerosols in the atmospheric science community, have been shown to impact clouds and precipitation. This project will study three different tropical cyclones to determine whether aerosols affect the weakening or strengthening of these storms, and whether it depends on when and where the aerosols interact with the storm. The research is important because it will help to determine whether aerosol impacts on tropical cyclones should be included as a priority investment area for improving weather and climate models. The project will also contribute to the training of the next generation of scientists through the inclusion of a graduate student in the research.The researchers plan to address the impact of pollution aerosols on tropical cyclone intensity. Prior observational and modeling studies have come to differing conclusions on whether these aerosols weaken or strengthen a storm. The researchers hypothesize that a key factor is the location in the storm where the enhanced aerosols are introduced. The planned work will consist of joining the GEOS-Chem atmospheric chemistry model to the Ocean-Land-Atmosphere Model (OLAM) and performing a number of simulations on three well-observed storms: western Pacific typhoon Nuri (2008), hurricane Sandy (2012), and hurricane Humberto (2007). The main hypotheses of the proposal are: 1) The response of a mature tropical cyclone to anthropogenic aerosols depends on the distribution of aerosols within the tropical cyclone with more aerosols entering the outer rainband region of the storm contributing to storm weakening whereas more aerosols entering the eyewall and inner rainband region contributing to storm intensification, 2) Anthropogenic aerosols ingested in a tropical disturbance, or a tropical storm, have the potential to contribute to the intensification of a storm, perhaps leading to the formation of a tropical cyclone, 3) Pollution aerosols entering a tropical cyclone undergoing transition to a cold-core system are unlikely to contribute substantially to storm intensity change, but are likely to contribute to enhanced rainfall.