Title: Equilibrium tropical cyclone size in radiative-convective equilibrium

Tropical cyclone size remains an unsolved problem in tropical meteorology, yet size plays a significant role in the damage caused by tropical cyclones due to wind, storm surge, and inland freshwater flooding. This work explores the physical determinants of tropical cyclone size and structure in a highly-idealized state of radiative-convective equilibrium (RCE) governed by only four external thermodynamic parameters, which are shown to modulate the storm structure primarily via modulation of the potential intensity. We find that the equilibrium radial wind profile is primarily a function of a single non-dimensional parameter given by the ratio of the storm radial length scale to the parameterized eddy radial length scale, with a secondary non-dimensional parameter modulating only the far outer circulation. The storm radial length scale is found to be the ratio of the potential intensity to the Coriolis parameter, matching the prediction for the ``natural" storm length scale embedded within prevailing axisymmetric tropical cyclone theory. Meanwhile, the Rossby deformation radius is shown not to be fundamental.

Speaker's Website: http://www.mit.edu/~drchavas/

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