The effects of ocean feedback on tropical cyclone energetics under idealized air-sea interaction conditions

[1] The effects of ocean feedback on the energetic characteristics of the tropical cyclone (TC) are investigated based on idealized TC-ocean coupling simulations. Results reveal notable impacts of ocean response on TC energetics. The ocean feedback reduces the latent energy of TCs, and consequently less latent heat is released in TC clouds, which leads to an evident decrease of the kinetic energy. A bulk equivalent potential temperature (θe) budget analysis demonstrates that the upward heat fluxes at the top of the boundary layer, of comparable magnitudes with the surface heat fluxes, are significantly diminished by the ocean feedback. A relatively higher portion of energy extracted from the ocean has been retained by the boundary layer under influences of the ocean feedback. The air parcels in contact with the cold wake possess evidently lowered moist static energy. To evaluate the evolution of moist static energy following these cooled air parcels, a three-dimensional Lagrangian analysis is conducted using a large sample of trajectory seeds. Statistical results indicate that there is a mixing process between the cooled and ambient air parcels that lasts mostly less than 240 min. Over 70% of the seeded air parcels approach to a radius of 30–90 km from the TC center before they obtain adequate energy from surrounding air to balance their negative asymmetric θe. Most of the cooled air parcels are warmed up in the boundary layer, thereby producing impacts on TC energetics through changing directly the moist static energy of the boundary layer. More work of real case simulations is required to generalize the findings reported herein.