The Time and Regime Dependencies of Sensitive Areas for Tropical Cyclone Prediction Using the CNOP Method

This study examines the time and regime dependencies of sensitive areas identified by the conditional nonlinear optimal perturbation (CNOP) method for forecasts of two typhoons. Typhoon Meari (2004) was weakly nonlinear and is herein referred to as the linear case, while Typhoon Matsa (2005) was strongly nonlinear and is herein referred to as the nonlinear case. In the linear case, the sensitive areas identified for special forecast times when the initial time was fixed resembled those identified for other forecast times. Targeted observations deployed to improve a special time forecast would thus also benefit forecasts at other times. In the nonlinear case, the similarities among the sensitive areas identified for different forecast times were more limited. The deployment of targeted observations in the nonlinear case would therefore need to be adapted to achieve large improvements for different targeted forecasts. For both cases, the closer the forecast time, the higher the similarities of the sensitive areas. When the forecast time was fixed, the sensitive areas in the linear case diverged continuously from the verification area as the forecast period lengthened, while those in the nonlinear case were always located around the initial cyclones. The deployment of targeted observations to improve a special forecast depends strongly on the time of deployment. An examination of the efficiency gained by reducing initial errors within the identified sensitive areas confirmed these results. In general, the greatest improvement in a special time forecast was obtained by identifying the sensitive areas for the corresponding forecast time period.