Albenis Pérez Alarcón

Instituto Superior de Tecnologías y Ciencias Aplicadas | InSTEC · Departamento de Meteorología

Offshore wind energy is an important agent to fight climate change. However, it is simultaneously very sensitive to climate change. This study analyzes the future changes in wind speed of 10 m above sea surface (V10) in the North Atlantic Ocean and how these variations may affect offshore wind energy resources for three potential subregions (the Un...

Global warming and associated changes in atmospheric circulation patterns are expected to alter the hydrological cycle, including the intensity and position of moisture sources. This study presents predicted changes for the middle and end of the 21st century under the SSP5-8.5 scenario for two important extratropical moisture sources: the North Atl...

Future changes in the intensity of tropical cyclones (TCs) under global warming are uncertain, although several studies have projected an upward trend in TC intensity. In this study, we examined the changes in the strength of TCs in the twenty-first century based on the Hurricane Maximum Potential Intensity (HuMPI) model forced with the sea surface...

Plain Language Summary This paper makes use of a combination of simulations forced with reanalysis data and a climate model to infer a series of changes over the present century in the behavior of the landfalling atmospheric river—ARs, regions of intense moisture transport located in the lower layers of the atmosphere—arriving at the Iberian Penins...

The tropical cyclones (TCs) trajectories are mainly controlled by the large-scale parameters related with the steering flow. We used the HURDAT2 database from 1980 to 2018 for grouping the tracks of TCs formed in the North Atlantic (NATL) main development region into straight moving (SM), recurving landfall (RCL) and recurving ocean (RCO). Based on...

Plain Language Summary Tropical cyclones (TCs) are one of the weather systems that often cause fatalities and strong damage to socioeconomic infrastructures in tropical and subtropical latitudes. During the poleward movement, they can undergo an extratropical transition (ET), experiencing notable changes in their structure, such as the replacement...

Tropical cyclones (TCs) are extremely rare over the South Atlantic Ocean (SATL) due to predominantly unfavourable conditions, that is, cool sea-surface temperature and strong vertical wind shear. Nevertheless, unusual conditions over SATL associated with a blocking system promoted the formation of Hurricane Catarina from an extratropical precursor...

The TRansport Of water VApor (TROVA) software, developed in Python and Fortran for the study of moisture sources and sinks, is presented here. TROVA includes the main Lagrangian methodologies established in the literature, using outputs from the global FLEXible PARTicle dispersion model and the regional FLEXPART-WRF model at different spatial resol...

Moisture transport and changes in the source–sink relationship play a vital role in the atmospheric branch of the hydrological cycle. Lagrangian approaches have emerged as the dominant tool to account for estimations of moisture sources and sinks; those that use the FLEXPART model fed by ERA-Interim reanalysis are most commonly used. With the relea...

The terrestrial and oceanic origins of precipitation over 50 major river basins worldwide were investigated for the period 1980–2018. For this purpose, we used a Lagrangian approximation that calculates the humidity that results in precipitation from the entire ocean area (ocean component of the precipitation, PLO) and the entire land area (land co...

Tropical cyclones (TCs) are an important component of the hydrological cycle at tropical latitudes. In this study, we investigated the origin of precipitation associated with TCs formed from 1980 to 2018 over the Pacific Ocean in three sub-basins: the Western North Pacific Ocean (WNP), Central and East Pacific Ocean (NEPAC), and South Pacific Ocean...

In this study, we investigated the moisture sources for precipitation through a Lagrangian approach during the genesis, intensification, and dissipation phases of all tropical cyclones (TCs) that occurred over the two hemispheric sub-basins of the Indian Ocean (IO) from 1980 to 2018. In the North IO (NIO), TCs formed and reached their maximum inten...

The main aim of the rain forecast is to determine rain occurrence conditions in a specific location. This is considered of vital importance to assess the availability of water resources in a basin. In this study, several methods are analyzed to forecast monthly rainfall totals in hydrological basins. The study region was the Almendares-Vento basin,...

Tropical-like cyclones (TLCs) are hybrid low-pressure systems formed over the Mediterranean Sea, showing the characteristics of tropical and extratropical cyclones. The literature review revealed that several studies have focused on determining the physical mechanisms that favour their formation; however, their rainfall has received little attentio...

Tropical cyclone (TC)-related rainfall mostly depends on the atmospheric moisture uptake from local and remote sources. In this study, the mean water vapour residence time (MWVRT) was computed for precipitation related to TCs in each basin and on a global scale by applying a Lagrangian moisture source diagnostic method. According to our results, th...

A sensitivity study is performed with Lin, Morrison 2-moment, WSM5, and WSM6 microphysics schemes for the numerical forecast of the low-level wind shear (LLWS) derived from storms at "José Martí" International Airport using the Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) model. As case studies, we select four storms associated with synoptic patterns tha...

On 12–15 March 1993, a severe winter storm (SC93) formed over the Gulf of Mexico, affecting the Caribbean Islands and the eastern coast of the United States (US) and Canada with a notable amount of precipitation, snow and severe local storms. In this study, we investigate the origin of the precipitation generated by SC93 by applying a widely used L...

In this study, we investigated the variations in the intensity of the tropical cyclones (TCs) formed in the North Atlantic basin from 1982 to 2021, based on the outputs from the Hurricane Maximum Potential Intensity (HuMPI) model. To feed HuMPI, we computed the annual Sea Surface Temperature (SST) as the SST average from 1 June to 30 November using...

This study evaluated the feasibility of applying a vortex relocation scheme based on a synthetic vortex in the Numerical Tools for Hurricane Forecast (NTHF) system, operating in the Department of Meteorology of the Higher Institute of Technologies and Applied Sciences, University of Havana. Hurricanes Dorian and Lorenzo and the tropical storm Karen...

Global warming and associated changes in atmospheric circulation patterns are expected to alter the hydrological cycle, including the intensity and position of moisture sources. This study presents predicted changes for the middle and end of the 21st century under different climate scenarios for two important extratropical moisture sources: the Nor...

In this study, we evaluated the ability of the Numerical Tools for Hurricane Forecast (NTHF) system, operational at the Department of Meteorology of the Higher Institute of Technologies and Applied Sciences, University of Havana, Cuba, for forecasting the intensity and trajectory of the North Atlantic (NATL) tropical cyclones (TCs). To assess the a...

In this study, we identified the origin of the moisture associated with the tropical cyclones’ (TCs) precipitation in the North Atlantic Ocean basin during their three well-differentiated life stages between 1980 and 2018. The HURDAT2 database was used to detect the location of 598 TCs during their genesis, maximum intensification peak, and dissipa...

The 2017 North Atlantic tropical cyclone season was among the most active in the last two decades, with 17 named storms, of which six reached the major hurricane (MH) intensity: Harvey, Irma, Jose, Lee, Maria, and Ophelia. In this study, the water vapour sources for precipitation for these six MHs were examined using a Lagrangian approach. The part...

Pérez-Alarcón et al. [1] developed a comparative climatology of the outer radius of tropical cyclones (TCs) from several radial wind profiles. They showed that the Willoughby et al. [2] (W06) profile can be used to reproduce the TC tangential wind speed; thus, this profile is skilful for estimating the TC outer radius. Here, we present a database o...

In this research, we performed a climatology analysis of tropical cyclones (TCs) landfalling in Cuba between 1980 and 2019. To develop the study, the historical records of TCs from the HURDAT2 database of the National Hurricane Center of the United States were used. In the study period, the Cuban territory was affected by 27 landfalling events, of...

A radial pressure profile was incorporated into the HuMPI (Hurricane Maximum Potential Intensity) model that guarantees a direct physical relationship between the calculation of the minimum central pressure and the maximum potential wind speed. The simulations carried out for Hurricanes Matthew and María show that the intensity reached by these sys...

A study of the impact of global warming on the intensity of tropical cyclones (TCs) in the North Atlantic (NATL) basin for 2050, 2075 and 2100 was developed, based on the maximum potential intensity (MPI). For this study, the Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory – Climate Model (GFDL-CM4) sea surface temperature (SST) outputs and the Hurricane Max...

The Guanahacabibes Peninsula is a highly vulnerable area to tropical cyclones. The effect of these meteorological events on the geomorphology of the coasts can affect the nesting area of sea turtles and therefore their reproductive success. The objectives of this work were: to relate the geomorphological changes with the reproductive success of the...

In this study, a climatology analysis of the cyclonic activity in the North Atlantic (NATL) basin was performed to improve our understanding of how sea surface temperature (SST) and climate variability modes modulate tropical cyclones (TCs) activity. The information on the TCs was extracted from the International Best Track Archive for Climate Stew...

In this study was performed a comparative climatology of outer tropical cyclone (TC) size using radial wind profiles. A wind speed of 2 m/s (∼4 kt) was taken as the threshold to define the TC size. The method proposed by Willoughby et al. (2006) (W06) to determine the wind profile showed the least variance and the smallest coefficient of variation...

Precipitation extremes such as heavy rainfall and floods are of great interest for climate scientists, particularly for small islands vulnerable to weather phenomena such as hurricanes. In this study, we investigated the spatio-temporal evolution of extreme rainfall over Cuba from 1980 to 2019, separating the dry and rainy periods. In addition, a r...

This study evaluates the performance of the Numerical Tools for Hurricane Forecast (NTHF) system during the 2020 North Atlantic (NATL) tropical cyclones (TCs) season. The system is configured to provide 5-day forecasts with basic input from the National Hurricane Center (NHC) and the Global Forecast System. For the NTHF validation, the NHC operatio...

El pronóstico de precipitaciones es considerado de vital importancia para evaluar la disponibilidad de recursos hídricos en una cuenca. En esta contribución, varios métodos son analizados para pronosticar la precipitación mensual en la cuenca Almendares – Vento, Cuba. Son comparados modelos autorregresivos integrados de medias móviles (ARIMA) y mod...

In this study, the moisture sources for the explosive cyclogenesis Miguel that occurred during 4–9 June 2019 in the North Atlantic were investigated. To determine the moisture sources, the Lagrangian FLEXPART particle dispersion model was used. The moisture uptake pattern revealed the western North Atlantic Ocean extending to north-western North Am...

This study examined the water budget of Hurricane Irma (2017) through a Lagrangian approach. To identify the moisture sources for the Hurricane Irma genesis and intensification the particle dispersion model FLEXPART was used. The North Atlantic Ocean between 15° and 30° North latitude and the South Atlantic Ocean were identified as the main moistur...

The phenomenon of drought is one of the most dangerous for small islands because of its impacts on freshwater availability. Thus, in this study, the spatio-temporal evolution of meteorological drought that affected the main island of Puerto Rico in the period 1950–2019 was investigated. In doing so, the Standardized Precipitation–Evapotranspiration...

The short-term prediction of precipitation is a difficult spatio-temporal task due to the non-uniform characterization of meteorological structures over time. Currently, neural networks such as convolutional LSTM have shown ability for the spatio-temporal prediction of complex problems. In this research, we propose an LSTM convolutional neural netw...

Python is a programming language in which libraries are continuously developed with application in atmospheric sciences. Alarconpy is a tools collection in Python programming language that offers many functions and algorithms for several meteorological applications as well as for quick processing of weather data. It includes, among others, function...

A system for the numerical forecast of tropical cyclones (TCs) named Numerical Tools for Hurricane Forecast (NTHF), that uses movable computing meshes, was implemented in a small computing cluster. The simulations are initialized with the forecast outputs of the Global Forecast System at 0000 UTC and the storm position provided by the National Hurr...

Resumen Se realizó un estudio de caso de varias configuraciones de modelos de pronóstico numérico para evaluar la habilidad de los mismos en el pronóstico de la intensidad y trayectoria de los ciclones tropicales. Para ello se seleccionaron 4 configuraciones del dominio de cómputo con 27-9 y 18-6 km de resolución para el HWRF (Hurricane Weather Res...

Resumen En el Aeropuerto Internacional “José Martí” de La Habana (MUHA), el nivel de exactitud que presentan los pronósticos de dirección del viento se aproximan a un 70%, los mismos no cumplen con los requisitos establecidos por las regulaciones aeronáuticas que exigen que la efectividad sea mayor al 85%. Por ello, se implementó un pronóstico numé...

The combined effect of the sea surface temperature (SST) and the North Atlantic subtropical high-pressure system (NASH) in the interannual variability of the genesis of tropical cyclones (TCs) and landfalling in the period 1980–2019 is explored in this study. The SST was extracted from the Centennial Time Scale dataset from the National Oceanic and...

A sensitivity study was developed with Lin, Morrison 2-moment, weather research and forecasting (WRF) single-moment 5-class (WSM5), and WRF single-moment 6-class (WSM6) microphysics schemes available in the weather research and forecasting-advanced research WRF (WRF-ARW) for the numerical forecast of the wind field at José Martí International Airpo...

Atmospheric moisture transport plays an important role in the genesis of tropical cyclones (TCs). In this study, the moisture sources associated with the genesis of TCs in the tropical Atlantic Ocean near West Africa, from June to November in the period 1980 - 2018 were identified. To detect the location of the TCs genesis was used the HURDAT2 data...

This study investigated the number of tropical cyclones (TCs) that affected Puerto Rico during the June-November hurricane season in the period 1980–2016, and their contribution to the total precipitation. Special attention was dedicated to assessing the role of atmospheric-oceanic teleconnections in the formation of TCs that affect this island. Th...

This study quantifies the amount of rainfall supplied by tropical cyclones (TCs) to Cuba. It uses the long–term global gridded Multi–Source Weighted–Ensemble Precipitation (MSWEP) v2 data set, with a resolution of 0.1° in latitude and longitude, and a temporal resolution of 3 h during the hurricane seasons from 1980–2016. During this study period,...

Global warming has led to an increase in sea surface temperature (SST), which combined with other factors creates ideal conditions for the formation of tropical cyclones (TCs). A trend analysis of the sea surface temperatures using the Centennial Time Scale (COBE SST2) dataset from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), reveale...

Heavy rainfall events, typically associated with tropical cyclones (TCs), provoke intense flooding, consequently causing severe losses to life and property. Therefore, the amount and distribution of rain associated with TCs must be forecasted precisely within a reasonable time to guarantee the protection of lives and goods. In this study, the skill...

A synthesis is offered, as a special contribution, of the most relevant aspects that are partially verified as part of the project "Prevention of the effects of climate change on endangered species", led by the Faculty of Environment of the Higher Institute of Technologies and Applied Sciences of the University of Havana. This is based on the broad...

The Emanuel's hurricane potential intensity model was improved through the introduction of the thermoenergetics cycle of tropical cyclones as a generalized Carnot's cycle, considering the presence of gradient wind imbalance at the top of the atmospheric boundary layer. The improved model overcomes the limitations concerning to the possible hurrican...

Resumen Se propone un método para el cálculo de la presión mínima central en un modelo de intensidad potencial de ciclones tropicales determinado a partir del perfil radial de viento de Willoughby, lo que garantiza una relación físicamente directa entre la presión mínima central y la velocidad máxima del viento en superficie. Se observó que el mode...

El conocimiento de patrones de distribución temporal de lluvia generada por ciclones tropicales constituye un elemento esencial para la anticipación y enfrentamiento de desastres hidrológicos de todo tipo, aportando una base técnica y teórica apropiada como soporte a la toma de decisiones en cada territorio. En la presente investigación, procesando...