Interactions between Hurricane Catarina (2004) and warm core rings in the South Atlantic Ocean

Abstract

The unexpected evolution of the first recorded South Atlantic Hurricane Catarina over waters with homogeneous sea surface temperatures (SST) of 24°C in March 2004 was a challenge to the weather forecast community. This work concentrates on a thorough data-driven comparative analysis to make reliable diagnostics of the role of the ocean in the genesis and evolution of Catarina. We used several high-resolution multisatellite-derived products, including three microwave-based SST data sets, multisatellite collinear data of sea surface height (SSH) anomalies, significant wave heights and wind speeds, four QuikSCAT ocean surface wind vector products (including the 12.5 km resolution swath data), d..