Research

My main research focus at this time involves tropical cyclone dynamics and intensity change. I am particularly interested with tropical cyclone structure and intensity change. Some of my other interests include atmospheric dynamics, tropical meteorology, numerical weather prediction, climate dynamics, global climate change, and societal impacts.

Current Active Research Topics

Formation of the Hurricane Eye                     (primary topic for PhD research)

Hurricanes and Global Climate Change        (side project)

(updated April 16, 2006)

Past Research

2000-2004     Forecasting of hurricane tracks with a kilo-member ensemble using MUDBAR

    The results of this research have been written up in my MS Thesis. Much of the ensemble output has been posted to an extensive web site (click on link above).

2002-2003     Comparison of Accuracy and Efficiency of a Multigrid Barotropic Model (MUDBAR) with the Operational LBAR

    The results of this research have now been published in an article in Monthly Weather Review: (Vigh et al, 2003). [PDF]    

2000     A Fuzzy Logic System for Predicting Hurricane Intensity in the Eastern North Pacific

    I did this research as a summer project for SOARS in 2000. Kevin Petty provided guidance as my scientific research mentor. We were testing the efficacy of using an adaptive weighting system for prediction of hurricane intensity. Current statistical/dynamical operational intensity products predict future intensity change using linear regression, a least squares fit of previous intensity and model data to parameters that are correlated with intensity change.  With observed and predicted parameter values, these regression equations produce a prediction of future intensity. Since rapid intensification is a highly nonlinear process, linear regression often under forecasts intensification. We decided to see if an adaptive weighting system could do better by 'learning' on each storm and adjusting the weights so that the parameters explaining most of the recent intensity variance were weighted the highest. You can read about the results in the Papers section.  

1999      Diagnosing Sources of Error in the Cloud Parameterizations of the NCAR Climate Community Model

    This was my summer project for SOARS in 1999. I worked with Joel Norris to run some diagnostics on the cloud properties of CCM3. We were particularly interested in finding errors caused by the cloud parameterizations of the model. You can read the report in the Papers section.

Useful research links    I'm gradually compiling a page of links that are useful for hurricane research.