A typhoon-induced storm surge numerical model with GPU acceleration based on an unstructured spherical centroidal Voronoi tessellation grid

Storm surge is often the marine disaster that poses the greatest threat to life and property in coastal areas.Accurate and timely issuance of storm surge warnings to take appropriate countermeasures is an important means to reduce storm surge-related losses.Storm surge numerical models are important for storm surge forecasting.To further improve the performance of the storm surge forecast models,we developed a numerical storm surge forecast model based on an unstructured spherical centroidal Voronoi tessellation(SCVT)grid.The model is based on shallow water equations in vector-invariant form,and is discretized by Arakawa C grid.The SCVT grid can not only better describe the coastline information but also avoid rigid transitions,and it has a better global consistency by generating high-resolution grids in the key areas through transition refinement.In addition,the simulation speed of the model is accelerated by using the openACC-based GPU acceleration technology to meet the timeliness requirements of operational ensemble forecast.It only takes 37 s to simulate a day in the coastal waters of China.The newly developed storm surge model was applied to simulate typhoon-induced storm surges in the coastal waters of China.The hindcast experiments on the selected representative typhoon-induced storm surge processes indicate that the model can reasonably simulate the distribution characteristics of storm surges.The simulated maximum storm surges and their occurrence times are consistent with the observed data at the representative tide gauge stations,and the mean absolute errors are 3.5 cm and 0.6 h respectively,showing high accuracy and application prospects.

Typhoon storm surge ensemble forecast based on GPU technique

The accuracy of typhoon forecasts plays an important role in the prediction of storm surges.The uncertainty of a typhoon’s intensity and track means it is necessary to use an ensemble model to predict typhoon storm surges.A hydrodynamic model,which is operational at the National Marine Environmental Forecasting Center,is applied to conduct surge simulations for South China coastal areas using the best track data with parametric wind and pressure models.The results agree well with tidal gauge observations.To improve the calculation efficiency,the hydrodynamic model is modified using CUDA Fortran.The calculation results are almost the same as those from the original model,but the calculation time is reduced by more than 99%.A total of 150 typhoon cases are generated by combining 50 typhoon tracks from the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts with three possible typhoon intensity forecasts.The surge ensembles are computed by the improved hydrodynamic model.Based on the simulated storm surges for the different typhoon cases,ensemble and probability forecast products can be provided.The mean ensemble results and probability forecast products are shown to agree well with the observed storm surge caused by Typhoon Mangkhut.The improved model is highly suitable for ensemble numerical forecasts,providing better forecast products for decision-making,and can be easily implemented to run on regular workstations.

Characteristics and mechanism of vertical coupling in the genesis of tropical cyclone Durian(2001)

The vertical coupling(VC)process and mechanism during the genesis of a tropical cyclone(TC)implied by the weak vertical shear of horizontal wind,one of the key factors impacting TC genesis,constitute important but unanswered fundamental scientific problems.This paper carried out a targeted investigation of this problem through numerical simulation and theoretical analyses.The main conclusions are as follows.Even if TC genesis occurs in a barotropic environment,a VC process still occurs between the trough(vortex)at the middle level and that at the lower level in the TC embryo area.VC mainly occurs at the tropical disturbance(TDS)stage.Only after the VC is accomplished can the tropical depression(TD)organize further by itself and develop into the tropical storm(TS)stage or the stronger tropical typhoon(TY)stage through the WISHE(wind-induced surface heat exchange)mechanism.In the VC process,vortical hot towers(VHTs)play vertical connecting roles and are the actual practitioners of the VC.Through the VHTs’vertical connections,the middle-and lower-troposphere trough axes move towards each other and realize the VC.VHTs can produce intensive cyclonic vorticity in the lower troposphere,which is mainly contributed by the stretching term.The tilting term can produce a single dipole or double dipole of vorticity,but the positive and negative vorticity pairs offset each other roughly.While the stretching term ensures that the cyclonic rotations of the wind field in the middle and lower levels tend to be consistent,the tilting term acts to uniformly distribute the horizontal wind in the vertical direction,and both terms facilitate the VC of the wind field.With the latent heat of condensation,VHTs heat the upper and middle troposphere so that the 352 K equivalent potential temperature contour penetrates vertically into the 925–300 hPa layer,realizing the VC of the temperature field.While forming cloud towers,VHTs make the ambient air become moist and nearly saturated so that the 95%relative humidity contour penetrates vertically into the 925–400 hPa layer,realizing the VC of the humidity field.Due to the collective contributions of the VHTs,the embryo area develops into a warm,nearly saturated core with strong cyclonic vorticity.The barotropic instability mechanism may also occur during TC genesis over the Northwest Pacific and provide rich large-scale environmental vorticity for TC genesis.The axisymmetric distribution of VHTs is an important sign of TC genesis.When a TC is about to form,there may be accompanying phenomena between the axisymmetric process of VHTs and vortex Rossby waves.