GLOBAL OCEAN HEAT CONTENT

Daily Oceanic Heat Content or Tropical Cyclone Heat Potential (TCHP) estimates are provided by Gustavo Goni at the Physical Oceanography Division of the NOAA Atlantic Oceanographic and Meteorological Laboratory located in Miami, FL. The spatial grid spacing is 0.2 Latitude x 0.2 Longitude and the units of the estimates are given as kJ/cm^2. A detailed description of how the product is created, product archives and TCHP in other regions can be found at Gustavo's web discussing TCHP. Tropical cyclone forecasts, as described above, are plotted on values of ocean heat content for reference.

For tropical cyclones in favorable environmental conditions for intensification (i.e., vertical wind shear less than 15 kt, mid-level relative humidity >50 %, and warm SSTs [i.e., >28.5C])and with intensities less than 80kt, values of ocean heat content greater than 50 kJ/cm^2 have been shown to promote greater rates of intensity change.

NOAA/AOML site:

http://www.aoml.noaa.gov/phod/cyclone/data/

Ocean Heat Content

and

Forecast Track

At NESDIS the above information is storm centric.

RAMMB/CIRA site: http://rammb.cira.colostate.edu/products/tc_realtime/