PRECIPITATION AND LATENT HEATING PROPERTIES OF TROPICAL CYCLONE IN THE NORTHWEST PACIFIC MEASURED BY GPM DPR AND HIMAWARI-8

Abstract

Using observations from the GPM Tropical Cyclone Overpass Dataset and Himawari-8, this study statistically analyses the tropical cyclones (above Typhoon categories) in the Northwest Pacific during the tropical cyclone (TC) frequent period (from May to October) of 2014–2018. Moreover, a case (Super Typhoon “Mangkhut”) was analysed in detail. This study uses a semi-manual method to identify three life cycle stages of tropical cyclones: developing stage, mature stage, and dissipating stage. The statistical results show that the distribution of precipitation and latent heat varies with positions and the tropical cyclone has the maximum precipitation (11.62 mm/h) at the mature stage along with the maximum convection ratio (22.97%) at the developing stage. It is most obvious that the release of latent heat in the upper cloud at developing stage and in the lower cloud at mature stage. The latent heat profile of convective precipitation presents a “bottom-heavy” structural, and the stratiform precipitation has a “top-heavy” latent heat profile. The proportion of stratiform precipitation to total precipitation (74.31%) is the largest, but the average precipitation of the stratiform (4.12 mm/h) is lower than the average precipitation of convective clouds (10.55 mm/h). The average particle radius of the stratiform precipitation is 1.13 mm, while the average precipitation particle radius of the convective cloud precipitation is 1.79 mm. Based on these statistical results, this paper briefly analyses the characteristics of cloud precipitation microphysical mechanisms in three life cycle stages. Besides, the latent heating profile distribution found in this study are related to the vertical variation of precipitation rate, which are different in terms of the type of precipitation cloud.