Sea Surface Temperature Optimization Evaluation in the Passage of an Explosive Cyclone in the Southwest Atlantic Ocean

Abstract

In numerical weather prediction, the updating of the Sea Surface Temperature (SST) can influence atmospheric phenomena on different scales. Thus, a simplified model of the oceanic mixed layer (OML), was included as a subroutine in the Brazilian Regional Atmospheric System (BRAMS) in order to update the SST at each time step, with low computational cost. Comparisons between atmospheric simulations using an active OML and climatological SST mask, which is part of the BRAMS model, were made. There were significant direct variations in the latent and sensible heat fluxes as well as in cloudiness: the warmer the SST, the greater the response of these variables. On the other hand, although there was no significant increase in precipitation rates, there was higher rainfall when the SST was higher. The variations in the sea level pressure were to the order of 1-2 hPa, indicating that the variations in surface flows are related to the maintenance and persistence of systems and not to their deepening.