EAGER: Data-driven Physical Model for Hurricanes' Intensity-size Relation

飓风是影响美国的最致命和最具破坏性的风暴之一，造成生命损失、建筑物和基础设施的毁灭性破坏以及巨大的经济损失。飓风的强度和大小都是决定其严重性和破坏性的关键因素。因此，准确预测飓风的强度和大小对普通公众和政府官员来说至关重要。观测到的飓风表现出非常丰富和复杂的强度-大小关系。即使考虑到最大风力半径的差异，相同最大风力的飓风仍然可以有不同的大小，或者相同大小的飓风可以有很大的强度范围。然而，现有的经验和理论模型往往在考虑到最大风半径的差异后，倾向于预测飓风强度和大小之间几乎一对一的关系。该项目的目标是开发一个数据驱动的物理模型，其解决方案可以再现观测到的飓风丰富而复杂的强度-大小关系。一个成功的项目将使人们更好地理解支配飓风强度和大小关系的物理原理。该项目将提供一个强大的工具，以找出在通过业务预测模型再现丰富而复杂的烈度-尺寸关系方面的主要缺陷，从而改善预测，提高公共安全和经济效益。该项目将培养大气动力学和数据科学领域的博士后，并通过与两名本科生合作进行荣誉论文研究来支持STEM教育。PIS将积极参与美国气象学会北佛罗里达分会，并向佛罗里达州立大学/塔拉哈西社区提供我们对飓风强度的试验性实时评估。该项目将采用一种新的方法，将理论和数据驱动技术相结合，为飓风的强度-大小关系建立一个新的模型。具体地说，PI将利用数据分析技术来探索控制不同飓风之间内向径向速度变化的因素，然后将这些因素与飓风角动量损失的变化联系起来。这个项目的另一个新奇之处是，将检验所开发的模式是否具有从外径边界条件向内和从内半径边界条件向外预测方位风径向廓线的能力。预测值和预测值的这种互换性使人们能够测试数据驱动的模型是否具有物理定律的质量。这一奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力优势和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

Hurricanes are among the most deadly and destructive storms impacting the United States, causing losses of life, devastating damages to buildings and infrastructures, and enormous financial losses. Both hurricanes’ intensity and size are the key factors determining their severity and destructive capability. Therefore, accurate prediction of hurricanes’ intensity and size is essential to general public and government officials. Observed hurricanes exhibit very rich and complex intensity-size relations. Even after taking the differences in the radius of the maximum wind into consideration, hurricanes with the same maximum wind can still have various sizes or hurricanes with the same size can have a large range of intensity. The existing empirical and theoretical models, however, tend to predict a nearly one-to-one relation between hurricanes’ intensity and size after taking the differences in the radius of the maximum wind into consideration. The goal of this project is to develop a data-driven physical model whose solutions can reproduce the rich and complex intensity-size relations of observed hurricanes. A successful project will lead to a better understanding of the physics governing hurricanes’ intensity-size relations. This project will provide a powerful tool to identify the major deficiencies in reproducing the rich and complex intensity-size relation by operational forecast models, leading to an improvement in forecasts and public safety and economic benefits. This project will train a postdoc in fields of atmospheric dynamics and data science and support STEM education by working with two undergraduate students on their honor theses research. The PIs will actively engage with North Florida Chapter of the American Meteorological Society and provide our experimental real time assessment of hurricanes’ intensity to the Florida State University/Tallahassee communities. This project will take a novel approach that combines theories and data-driven techniques to build a new model for the hurricanes’ intensity-size relation. Specifically, the PIs will utilize data analysis techniques to explore what are the factors controlling the variation of inward radial velocity among different hurricanes and then link these factors to the variation of hurricanes’ angular momentum loss. Another novelty of this project is that the developed model will be validated by examining its ability to predict the radial profile of azimuthal wind both inwardly from the boundary condition at outer radii and outwardly from the boundary condition at inner radii. Such exchangeability of the predictends and predictors allows ones to test whether the data-driven model possesses the quality of physical laws.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.