Research Guidance on Tropical Cyclones (Hurricanes)

[Selfless_Gene]

Hello,

I am undergraduate student doing research and I am studying hurricane Katrina my completed math course is Calculus 3 which is up to Vector calculus. For my research I want study only wind force of the hurricane Katrina and I have a process but I want to know if its valid and what program I could use to accomplish this.

Process:

1. Collect the data on lat and long of path of the hurricane and plot the wind speed (velocity ) at those long. lat. points .

2. Once I input my data I want to obtain a vector function that describes the wind force.

3. Then i would like to transform several points on the path into a topography graph where we can see color indicators of strong winds.

4. Finally, I want apply a force in this path that can reduce the wind force and obtain a function describing the wind force.

Thank You for your time

 

[jedishrfu]

You have given a good overview however to really solve the problem you'll need to know the force level and extent of the hurricane in addition to its path.

If you recall the lat/lon of the hurricane will be with respect to its eye. However, the eye of the hurricane has very low to zero wind speed.

Hurricanes also have a 3D structure where the winds are different at different heights. There is a water/rainfall component and a spinoff tornado component to be concerned with too.

Here's a more detailed model which I realize is beyond what you want to do but may give you some insight as to what you'll need in your model:

https://www.casact.org/education/rpm/2015/handouts/Paper_4071_handout_2487_0.pdf

and this site:

http://www.hurricanescience.org/science/forecast/models/modeltypes/dynamicalmodels/

and this site for 3D modeling:

http://www.soest.hawaii.edu/met/Faculty/businger/courses/notes200/15HurricaneStructure.pdf

So I guess you get to pick and choose what you want to model.

What programming will you be using? Matlab or Java...

 

[Selfless_Gene]

You have given a good overview however to really solve the problem you'll need to know the force level and extent of the hurricane in addition to its path.

If you recall the lat/lon of the hurricane will be with respect to its eye. However, the eye of the hurricane has very low to zero wind speed.

Hurricanes also have a 3D structure where the winds are different at different heights. There is a water/rainfall component and a spinoff tornado component to be concerned with too.

Here's a more detailed model which I realize is beyond what you want to do but may give you some insight as to what you'll need in your model:

https://www.casact.org/education/rpm/2015/handouts/Paper_4071_handout_2487_0.pdf

and this site:

http://www.hurricanescience.org/science/forecast/models/modeltypes/dynamicalmodels/

and this site for 3D modeling:

http://www.soest.hawaii.edu/met/Faculty/businger/courses/notes200/15HurricaneStructure.pdf

So I guess you get to pick and choose what you want to model.

What programming will you be using? Matlab or Java...

Thank you for your response and feedback it was very helpful. I've been using mathematica but it requires programming knowledge and its been diffcult for me to understand. I am going to look into MAT LAB now. Is there any program you recommend? I don't have the data of force level but the speed of the hurricane at that specific points of lat and long.

Also may i have your insights on a new plan i am proposing

1. create a multivariable function from f(lat, long) that describes the hurricanes path during time interval.

2. Use the multivariable function to create a countor graph that shows how the wind is moving over time.

3. Create a opposing multivariable function. (this portion is confusing I've never attempted this )

Does my steps make sense are they valid?

Thank You

 

[FactChecker]

If MATLAB is available for you to use, it is excellent. If you are on a limited budget or want to use a statistical package that is easily available, then you should consider R. It is free and well respected. There are R packages for geographic plots (see https://cran.r-project.org/doc/contrib/intro-spatial-rl.pdf )

 

[jedishrfu]

Download freemat from the SourceForge website:

http://freemat.sourceforge.net/

Freemat is an open source Matlab clone mimicing core Matlab capability. I’ve used it a lot for quick plots and calculations. Matlab though comes with many toolkits that make life easier in certain computational domains like modeling and simulation,

There’s also Julia and the notebook interface from the anaconda distribution. Julia is very similar to Matlab but is open source and works well with other modeling languages and tools. There is a charting library as well.

Check this site for details:

https://lectures.quantecon.org/jl/