Hurricanes are the leading cause of economic loss in the United States, and recent studies have shown that they have increased in intensity. The growth of population and wealth to coastal regions has exacerbated catastrophic losses. The purpose of this study is to examine the role of three modes of natural climate variability as well as hurricane intensification on destructiveness along the Gulf Coast. The study utilized R programming software to create raster grids and evaluate spatial and temporal relationships between intensification, intensity, sea surface temperatures and destructiveness. Destructiveness was synthesized using the Pielke Landsea 2018 (PL18) normalized losses dataset. The principal findings revealed that the Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation (AMO) has the greatest influence on hurricane intensification and associated damages. The study offers a contribution to research on hurricane intensification and destructiveness associated with natural climate variability and urges stakeholders to dedicate funds for mitigation measures to reduce the vulnerability to Gulf Coast counties.

A new oceanic climatology to calculate ocean heat content (OHC) was developed for application year-round in the Atlantic Ocean basin. The Systematically Merged Atlantic Regional Temperature and Salinity (SMARTS) Climatology blends temperature and salinity fields from the World Ocean Atlas 2001 (WOA) and Generalized Digital Environmental Model v.3.0 (GDEM) at 1/4° resolution. This higher resolution climatology better resolves features in the Gulf of Mexico (GOM), including the Loop Current and eddy structures, than the previous coarser 1/2° products. Daily mean isotherm depths of the 20° C (D20) and 26° C (D26) (and their mean ratio), reduced gravity (e.g., 2-layer model), mixed layer depth (MLD), and OHC were estimated from the blended climatology. Using SMARTS with satellite-derived surface height anomaly and SST fields, daily values of D20, D26, MLD, and OHC were calculated from 1998 to 2010 using a two-layer model approach. Airborne and ship-deployed eXpendable BathyThermographs (XBT), long-term moorings, and Argo profiling floats provided the in-situ data to blend and assess the SMARTS Climatology. A clear, direct relationship emerged from the detailed analysis between satellite-derived and in-situ measurements of isotherm depths and OHC. This new climatological approach created a more accurate estimation of isotherm depths and OHC from satellite radar altimetry measurements, which can be used in hurricane intensity forecasts from the Statistical Hurricane Intensity Prediction Scheme (SHIPS). The Mainelli (2000) technique of calculating OHC was reexamined to most accurately project sea surface height anomalies (SSHA) into changes in depths of D20, D26, and MLD. SSHA surface features were tracked to determine realistic drift velocities ingested into the objective analysis algorithm. The former OHC algorithm assumed a climatological MLD, however observations show large temporal variability of MLD. Using a SSHA-dependent MLD for the OHC estimation improves the two-layer model by 5%. Upper ocean thermal structure estimations improved by 25% using the SMARTS Climatology as compared to that of Mainelli (2000).

Au cours de cette thèse nous avons caractérisé les tourbillons quasibidimensionnels générés par convection thermique turbulente dans une demi-bullede savon. La loi de puissance en temps sur leur déplacement quadratique moyen estégalement valide pour les cyclones terrestres. Cette loi permet la prévision detrajectoire de cyclones assortie du cône de prévision comparable aux cônesexistants. Ainsi, les incertitudes de prédiction de trajectoire et les fluctuations decette trajectoire par rapport à une trajectoire moyenne sont liées. Par ailleurs, l’étudede l’intensité des tourbillons de la bulle a montré qu’ils pouvaient être décrit par unmodèle de tourbillon de type Lamb. Le suivi lagrangien de particules de fluide dans letourbillon de la bulle a permis d’en suivre des phases d’intensification et de déclin.Nous proposons une loi d’intensification commune aux tourbillons de la bulle et auxcyclones terrestres. L’influence de la rotation de la bulle sur le nombre de tourbillons,sur leur durée de vie, sur leur trajectoire et sur la loi de puissance de leurdéplacement quadratique moyen a également été étudiée. Nous nous sommes aussiintéressés à l’influence de la rotation sur les propriétés statistiques du champ defluctuations de température. Les fonctions de structures de la température semblentse raidir avec la rotation de la bulle et leurs exposants passeraient d’un régime de loide puissance en n/3 à n/2. / This thesis aims at the characterisation of quasi two dimensionalvortices stemming from turbulent thermal convection in a half soap bubble heatedfrom below. The power law in time for their mean square displacement is also validfor Earth hurricanes. This law allows simple hurricane trajectory prediction with itstrack forecast cone wich compares very well to already available cones. In this way,track prediction uncertainty and track fluctuations around a mean track are linked.The intensity of the soap bubble vortices is also studied by the mean of particleimages velocimetry and shows that their velocity field profiles are well described by aLamb type model. The Lagrangian tracking of fluid praticles in a bubble vortex allowsus to follow its intensification and decline phases. We propose an intensification lawfor both soap bubble vortices and Earth hurricanes. Rotation influence on the vorticesnumber, on their life-time, on their trajectory and on the power law of their meansquared displacement is also gauged. The statistical properties of the temperaturefield fluctuations also seem to change with rotation. The exponent of the temperaturestructure functions present a scaling transition from n/3 to n/2.