Typhoon Higos approached China’s southern coast on August 18, 2020, and hit the land on August 19, bringing high winds and heavy rain.

Researchers from the Institute of Atmospheric Physics (IAP) at the Chinese Academy of Sciences, Fudan University and the China Meteorological Administration well captured and analyzed the process for adaptive observation on the typhoon.

Scientists from IAP identified the key areas for typhoon Higos using the conditional nonlinear optimal perturbation (CNOP) method, where the observations are most probable to improve the forecast. Fengyun Satellite (FY-4) "captured" typhoon Higos (202007) and transferred the data back to the National Satellite Meteorological Center (NSMC), which marks the first integration of the theoretical research and the operational observations.

"Large scale observation is not only costly but also difficult to practice in the real world. 'Adaptive observation' aims at increasing additional but limited observations only within some key areas to obtain the most useful information on severe weather/climate events forecasts of concerned," said Prof. DUAN Wansuo, a scientist from IAP. "So observations covering such key areas of the typhoon are really helpful for improving both the initial conditions of the numerical model and the forecast skills." 

In this collaboration, the CNOP-adaptive observing approach, proposed by MU Mu’s Team from Fudan University and DUAN’s Team from IAP, was used to identify the key areas of the typhoon Higos (202007) forecast. And the FY-4 transferred the data to the NSMC at every 30 minutes starting from 8pm August 18.