Internal control of hurricane intensity variability: The dual nature of potential vorticity mixing

Abstract

In hurricane eyewalls, the vertical stretching effect tends to produce an annular ring of high vorticity. Idealized, unforced nondivergent barotropic model results have suggested such rings of vorticity are often barotropically unstable, leading to strong asymmetric mixing events where vorticity is mixed inward into a more stable configuration. Such mixing events most often result in weakened maximum winds. The manner in which forcing modifies these unforced simulations remains an open question. In the current study, a forced, two-dimensional barotropic model is used to systematically study the sensitivity of vorticity rings to ring geometry and spatially and temporally varying forcing. The simulations reveal an internal mechanism that interrupts the intensification process resulting from vorticity generation in the hurricane eyewall. This internal control mechanism is due to vorticity mixing in the region of the eye and eyewall and can manifest itself in two antithetical forms - as a transient "intensification brake" during symmetric intensification or as an enhancer of intensification through efficient transport of vorticity from the eyewall, where it is generated, to the eye. © 2009 American Meteorological Society.