Abstract
This study examines the characteristics of tropical cyclone (TC)
turbulence and its related predictability implications. Using the
Fourier-Bessel spectral decomposition for convective-permitting
simulations, it is shown that TC turbulence possesses different spectral
properties in the azimuthal and radial directions, with a steeper power
law in the radial-wavenumber than those in the azimuthal-wavenumber
direction. This spectral difference between the azimuthal and radial
directions prevents one from using a single wavenumber to interpret TC
intensity predictability as for classical homogeneous isotropic
turbulences. Analyses of spectral error growth for a high-wavenumber
perturbation further confirm that the spectral growth is more rapid for
high azimuthal wavenumbers than for the radial wavenumbers, reaching
saturation after ~9 hrs and ~18 hrs for
the azimuthal and radial directions, respectively. This result
highlights the key difficulty in quantifying TC intensity predictability
based on spectral upscale error growth for future applications.