A Parametric Model for Tropical Cyclone Waves

Abstract

One of the major challenges in fully understanding the complex wave fields produced by intense tropical cyclones is having sufficient data to fully define the spatial wave field in such systems. Although the in situ data set is increasing, it is still quite limited and does not cover the full range of possible tropical cyclone parameters. One way to address this problem is to use remote sensing data obtained from satellites. Radar altimeters on such satellites have now been in operation for more than 25 years. Such a data set is used to investigate the wave field within tropical cyclones. The full data set consists of the over flight by an altimeter of a total of 440 tropical cyclones. As su..