The Scales of Variation of Turbulent Kinetic Energy Dissipation in Hurricanes

Abstract

Conventional techniques for determining which features of hurricanes govern their distribution of kinetic energy dissipation rate (?) fail to yield significant correlations because of the high random variability of ?. Spectral analysis of the time series of the logarithm of ?, however, shows several distinct features which may be tentatively identified with specific aspects of the storm circulation. In particular, cloud-scale, cloud-cluster-scale and rainband-scale peaks occur in the power spectrum of log10?.