On the Tropical Cyclone Integrated Kinetic Energy Balance

Abstract

Abstract Current global historical reanalyzes prevent to adequately examine the role of the near‐core surface wind structural properties on tropical cyclones climate trends. Here we provide theoretical and observational evidences that they are crucial for the monitoring of integrated kinetic energy. The kinetic energy balance is reduced to a simple rule involving two parameters characterizing the surface wind structure and directly suggested by the governing equations. The theory is uniquely verified with a database of high‐resolution ocean surface winds estimated from all‐weather spaceborne synthetic aperture radar. Such measurements provide indirect estimates of a multiplicative constant modulating the kinetic energy balance and associated with the system thermodynamics. Consequently, accumulated high‐resolution acquisitions of the ocean surface shall allow to better monitor the integrated kinetic energy and provide new means to tackle climatological studies of tropical cyclones destructiveness.

Keywords

• tropical cyclones
• wind
• satellite observations
• synthetic aperture radar
• kinetic energy