Evaluations of Diagnostic Marine Boundary-Layer Models Applied to Hurricanes

Four diagnostic marine boundary-layer models are evaluated for applicability to the hurricane regime. The goat was to develop an operational method of estimating surface variables with research aircraft flight-level (500 m) data. Evaluation consisted of comparing the four models plus two estimation methods with “ground truth” buoy and ship wind speed data from Hurricanes Eloise and Anita and vertically stacked several-level aircraft data in Eloise and Caroline. Three of the boundary-layer models are capable of estimating wind speed to 10% accuracy. Model results also include 10 m level neutral drag coefficients, which were compared with previous studies.