George R. Halliwell and L. Keith Shay, RSMAS/Univ. of Miami, S. Daniel Jacob,
NASA/GSFC,
and Ole Martin Smedstad, Naval Research Lab.
Special data-assimilative hindcasts of the Atlantic Ocean were performed at the Naval Research Laboratory for the 1998 and 2002 hurricane seasons. These hindcasts will be used to provide initial and boundary conditions for simulations of the ocean response to hurricane Bonnie (1998) and to hurricanes Isidore and Lili (2002). This talk will summarize the evaluation of the 2002 product. Model fields will be compared to aircraft and in-situ observations. Tropical cyclone heat potential maps will be calculated from the model and compared to maps derived from satellite altimetry. Hurricane intensity is strongly influenced by heat potential, the spatial distribution of which is closely tied to the location of warm eddies and boundary currents such as the Loop Current. The evaluation will emphasize how accurately the data-assimilative hindcast reproduces these features and their interaction with the ocean mixed layer. The 2002 product was provided to S. D. Jacob, who will present hurricane simulations at this meeting.