Observing the air-sea turbulent heat flux on the trajectory of tropical storm Danas

Tropical cyclones constitute a major risk for coastal communities. To assess their damage potential, accurate predictions of their intensification are needed, which requires a detailed understanding of the evolution of turbulent heat flux (THF). By combining multiple buoy observations along the south-north storm track, we investigated the THF anomalies associated with tropical storm Danas (2019) in the East China Sea (ECS) during its complete life cycle from the intensification stage to the mature stage and finally to its dissipation on land. The storm passage is characterized by strong winds of 10–20 m/s and a sea level pressure below 1 000 hPa, resulting in a substantial enhancement of THF. Latent heat (LH) fluxes are most strongly affected by wind speed, with a gradually increasing contribution of humidity along the trajectory. The relative contributions of wind speed and temperature anomalies to sensible heat (SH) depend on the stability of the boundary layer. Under stable conditions, SH variations are driven by wind speed, while under near-neutral conditions, SH variations are driven by temperature. A comparison of the observed THF and associated variables with outputs from the ERA5 and MERRA2 reanalysis products reveals that the reanalysis products can reproduce the basic evolution and composition of the observed THF. However, under extreme weather conditions, temperature and humidity variations are poorly captured by ERA5 and MERRA2, leading to large LH and SH errors. The differences in the observed and reproduced LH and SH during the passage of Danas amount to 26.1 and 6.6 W/m2 for ERA5, respectively, and to 39.4 and 12.5 W/m2 for MERRA2, respectively. These results demonstrate the need to improve the representation of tropical cyclones in reanalysis products to better predict their intensification process and reduce their damage.