A study of typhoon intensity change using satellite remote sensing data

Mechanisms of influence on typhoon intensity change in the northwestern Pacific are studied by using satellite remote sensing data. A decision tree of data mining technique is applied to analyze the possible influence of geophysical parameters on typhoon intensity change. The related geophysical parameters include sea surface temperature, atmospheric water vapor, rain rate, sea surface height anomaly, and sea-air temperature difference. The total number of 14 Category-5 typhoons occurred between 2003 and 2007 in the northwestern Pacific is employed for this study. The results indicate that the major mechanism of influence on typhoon intensity change is seaair temperature difference and the second one is sea surface temperature. About 88% typhoon intensity is enhanced when a typhoon passes over the ocean where its sea surface temperature is larger than air temperature. The model is further validated by typhoon JANGMI. The accuracy and precision of this model are 82.3% and 85.7%, respectively.