Measuring of Tropical Cyclone Intensity Using Fractal Dimension

Abstract

The 3-dimension fractal dimension of an object represents roughness of the object. The object with higher fractal dimension is rougher than the object with lower fractal dimension. For an ensemble of clouds in satellite images, a high value of fractal dimension indicates that the difference between the heights of cloud tops is large. In this article, the fractal dimension of tropical cyclone in the satellite image was investigated in order to find a relationship between tropical cyclone intensity and its fractal dimension in satellite image. Nine tropical cyclones in the year 2006 were selected as study cases. An improved variation method for fractal dimension calculation was proposed.