THE THEORY OF MOIST POTENTIAL VORTICITY AND ITS APPLICATION IN THE DIAGNOSIS OF TYPHOON RAINFALL AND INTENSITY

This paper tests the impacts of cloud-induced mass forcing on the moist potential vorticity (MPV) anomaly associated with torrential rains caused by Typhoon No.9914 (Dan) by using fine model simulation data outputted by the Fifth-Generation NCAR / Penn State Mesoscale Model (MM5). The diagnostic results show that the positive MPV anomaly region, which is obtained by integrating the MPV from 600 hPa to 300 hPa in the vertical, roughly coincides with the precipitation at their synchronous stages either in position or in the distribution pattern, and the maximum positive MPV area of Dan is located mainly between 600 hPa and 300 hPa, which is much higher than torrential rain cases. Further analyses also showed that the value of positive MPV anomaly increased or decreased with the development of Dan, and the positive MPV anomaly may also be served as a tracer to indicate the evolution of tropical cyclone intensity.