Flight-level thermodynamic instrument wetting errors in hurricanes. II - Implications

The implications of flight-level instrument wetting error removal upon the mean thermodynamic structure across the eyewall, buoyancy of rainband vertical motions, and vertical energy fluxes near the top of the inflow layer are studied. Thermodynamic quantities across the mean eyewall are found to increase at all levels. As a result, maximum radial gradients of each quantity are shifted from the center of the eyewall cloud toward the outer edge. The increase in equivalent potential temperature lifts eyewall values to comparable magnitudes observed in the eye. The mean virtual potential temperature deviation of rainband updrafts increases from slightly negative to slightly positive. This increase and shift in sign are more pronounced in stronger updrafts. The mean deviation in rainband downdrafts decreases slightly toward neutral conditions. Vertical sensible heat fluxes near the top of the inflow layer are found to shift from downward to upward. Upward latent heat fluxes increase. Implications of these results for hurricane structure and evolution are discussed. (Author)