RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN SEA SURFACE TEMPERATURE AND MAXIMUM POTENTIAL INTENSITY OF TROPICAL CYCLONES OVER THE VIET NAM EAST SEA

Abstract

Sea surface temperature (SST) is one of the most important thermal factors affecting tropical cyclones intensity. This paper develops an empirical distribution function to study relationship between SST and intensity of tropical cyclones over the Viet Nam East Sea based on a 35-year dataset (1982-2016). The results show that the maximum intensity of tropical cyclones rapidly increase below the 25⁰C-group, then slowly increases to the highest value in the 30⁰C-group and finally, significantly reduces in the 31⁰C-groups. The natural logarithm function (ln) is constructed to represent the statistical relationship between the maximum potential intensity tropical cyclone and the surface water temperature with a temperature limit of less than 30.5°C. This results could provide a quick identification of the upper limit of tropical cyclone potential intensity when having information about SST in the Viet Nam East Sea.