Editors’ Highlights are summaries of recent papers by AGU’s journal editors.
Source: Geophysical Research Letters
Overshooting tops are a proxy for deep convection in clouds. Using Himawari-8 satellite images, overshooting tops were identified in 45 typhoons and their diurnal variation was analyzed by Sun et al. [2021]. Strong typhoons and typhoons going through rapid intensification (RI) have a greater density of overshooting tops, than weaker typhoons, as well as those intensifying slowly or weakening. Furthermore, RI typhoons have a greater diurnal variation in overshooting top density than non-rapid intensifying typhoons. The results point to overshooting top density as a potential indicator for estimating changes in typhoon intensity and could potentially be used in the improvement of both diagnosis and prediction of typhoon intensity in the future.
Citation: Sun, L., Tang, X., Zhuge, X., Tan, Z.-M., & Fang, J. [2021]. Diurnal variation of overshooting tops in typhoons detected by Himawari-8 satellite. Geophysical Research Letters, 48, e2021GL095565. https://doi.org/10.1029/2021GL095565
—Suzana Camargo, Editor, Geophysical Research Letters