Association of air sea heat fluxes with tropical cyclones, intensity, energy and destructiveness

In this study, we have tried to find out how closely air-sea heat fluxes (Surface Latent Heat Flux (SLHF) and Surface Sensible Heat Flux (SSHF)) are associated with the intensity, energy and destructiveness of the Bay of Bengal (BoB) Intense Tropical Cyclones (ITCs). For this, we have considered the 32 ITCs which originated over the BoB during 1990–2020. We have taken the vital parameters data from IMD best track data and the high resolution (0.25°×0.25°) flux data from the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecast’s (ECMWF) ERA5. We have calculated the ACE and PDI from the vital parameters of each ITC and correlated them with accumulated SLHF and accumulated SSHF. We have found that ACE and PDI depict a strong correlation with accumulated SLHF (R²_{slhf_ACE}=0.82, R²_{slhf_PDI}=0.49) and accumulated SSHF (R²_{sshf_ACE}=0.79, R²_{sshf_PDI}=0.56). It is also observed that ITCs’ intensity is also strongly correlated with max SLHF (R²_{slhf_CP}=-0.56, R²_{slhf_WIND}=0.57) whereas it is weakly correlated with max SSHF (R²_{sshf_CP}=-0.24, R²_{sshf_WIND}=0.23).