High resolution WRF simulations of Hurricane Irene: Sensitivity to aerosols and choice of microphysical schemes

Recent studies have pointed to the possible sensitivity of hurricanes to aerosols via aerosol effects on microphysical and thermodynamic processes in clouds. Hurricane Irene, occurring in August 2011, is an excellent case study for investigating aerosol effects on tropical cyclone (TC) structure and intensity: it moved northward along the eastern coast of the United States, and weakened much faster than was predicted by the National Hurricane Center. Moreover, the minimum pressure in Irene occurred, atypically, about 40 h later than the time of maximum wind speed. In this study, we simulate Hurricane Irene with 1-km grid spacing using Spectral Bin Microphysics (SBM) and various bulk microphysical schemes in WRF. Simulations with SBM showed that aerosols penetrating the eyewall of Irene from the Saharan Air Layer (SAL) led to an intensification of convection at Irene's eyewall and to a deepening of the hurricane. When Irene moved along the eastern coast of the United States, continental aerosols led to an intensification of convection at Irene's periphery, which interfered with the re-forming of the inner eyewall and to Irene weakening. Sensitivity tests using different "bulk" microphysics schemes indicated a large dispersion of simulated minimum pressure and maximum wind between different simulations. This showed that the simulated hurricane intensity was very sensitive to microphysical processes. Moreover, in consequence, forecast hurricane intensity was highly dependent on the choice of microphysical scheme. New bulk-parameterization schemes simulated the tropical storm intensity of Irene reasonably well. Most bulk schemes that used saturation adjustment indicate the weak sensitivity to aerosols that prevents them from precisely predicting the time evolution of TC intensity and structure. (C) 2015 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.