On the non-parametric changepoint detection of flow regimes in cyclone Amphan

Abstract

The Bay of Bengal was witness to a severe cyclone named Amphan during the summer of the year 2020. The National Institute of Ocean Technology (NIOT), INDIA moorings BD08 and BD09 happened to be in the vicinity of the cyclone. The highly instrumented mooring recorded near-surface meteorological parameters like wind speed, sea surface temperature, and near-surface pressure. This article explores the possibility of using a non-parametric algorithm to identify different flow regimes using a one-month long time-series data of the near-surface parameters. The changes in the structure of the time series signal were statistically segmented using an unconstrained non-parametric algorithm. The non-parametric changepoint method was applied to time series of near-surface winds, sea surface temperature, sea level pressure, air temperature and salinity and the segmentations are consistent with visual observations. Identifying different data segments and their simple parameterization is a crucial component and relating them to different flow regimes is useful for the development of parametrization schemes in weather and climate models. The segmentations can considerably simplify the parametrization schemes when expressed as linear functions. Moreover, the usefulness of non-parametric automatic detection of data segments of similar statistical properties shall be more apparent when dealing with relatively long time series data.