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<front>
<journal-meta>
<journal-id journal-id-type="publisher">ESSDD</journal-id>
<journal-title-group>
<journal-title>Earth System Science Data Discussions</journal-title>
<abbrev-journal-title abbrev-type="publisher">ESSDD</abbrev-journal-title>
<abbrev-journal-title abbrev-type="nlm-ta">Earth Syst. Sci. Data Discuss.</abbrev-journal-title>
</journal-title-group>
<issn pub-type="epub">1866-3591</issn>
<publisher><publisher-name></publisher-name>
<publisher-loc>Göttingen, Germany</publisher-loc>
</publisher>
</journal-meta>
<article-meta>
<article-id pub-id-type="doi">10.5194/essd-2026-388</article-id>
<title-group>
<article-title>An ERA5-derived mesovortex tracking framework for investigating tropical cyclogenesis</article-title>
</title-group>
<contrib-group><contrib contrib-type="author" xlink:type="simple"><name name-style="western"><surname>Fan</surname>
<given-names>Jianqiao</given-names>
</name>
<xref ref-type="aff" rid="aff1">
<sup>1</sup>
</xref>
</contrib>
<contrib contrib-type="author" xlink:type="simple"><name name-style="western"><surname>Wu</surname>
<given-names>Liguang</given-names>
<ext-link>https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0784-5853</ext-link>
</name>
<xref ref-type="aff" rid="aff1">
<sup>1</sup>
</xref>
<xref ref-type="aff" rid="aff3">
<sup>3</sup>
</xref>
</contrib>
<contrib contrib-type="author" xlink:type="simple"><name name-style="western"><surname>Zhao</surname>
<given-names>Haikun</given-names>
</name>
<xref ref-type="aff" rid="aff2">
<sup>2</sup>
</xref>
</contrib>
<contrib contrib-type="author" xlink:type="simple"><name name-style="western"><surname>Dong</surname>
<given-names>Zhenyuan</given-names>
</name>
<xref ref-type="aff" rid="aff1">
<sup>1</sup>
</xref>
</contrib>
</contrib-group><aff id="aff1">
<label>1</label>
<addr-line>Dept. of Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences and Institute of Atmospheric Sciences, Fudan University, Shanghai, China</addr-line>
</aff>
<aff id="aff2">
<label>2</label>
<addr-line>Key Laboratory of Meteorological Disaster, Nanjing University of Information Science and Technology, Nanjing, China</addr-line>
</aff>
<aff id="aff3">
<label>3</label>
<addr-line>CMA-FDU Joint Laboratory of Marine Meteorology, Shanghai 200438, China</addr-line>
</aff>
<pub-date pub-type="epub">
<day>14</day>
<month>07</month>
<year>2026</year>
</pub-date>
<volume>2026</volume>
<fpage>1</fpage>
<lpage>27</lpage>
<permissions>
<copyright-statement>Copyright: &#x000a9; 2026 Jianqiao Fan et al.</copyright-statement>
<copyright-year>2026</copyright-year>
<license license-type="open-access">
<license-p>This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. To view a copy of this licence, visit <ext-link ext-link-type="uri"  xlink:href="https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/</ext-link></license-p>
</license>
</permissions>
<self-uri xlink:href="https://essd.copernicus.org/preprints/essd-2026-388/">This article is available from https://essd.copernicus.org/preprints/essd-2026-388/</self-uri>
<self-uri xlink:href="https://essd.copernicus.org/preprints/essd-2026-388/essd-2026-388.pdf">The full text article is available as a PDF file from https://essd.copernicus.org/preprints/essd-2026-388/essd-2026-388.pdf</self-uri>
<abstract>
<p>Previous studies have suggested that the vertical mesovortex couple plays a critical role in tropical cyclogenesis. This couple consists of midlevel and low-level mesoscale vortices, whose formation is believed to result from different physical mechanisms. However, existing tropical cyclone datasets primarily document post-formation stages, and a substantial gap remains between the well-observed life cycles of mature tropical cyclones and the poorly documented mesoscale processes preceding formation. To address this gap, a flexible, objective detection and tracking framework was developed based on ERA5 reanalysis, termed the Mesovortex Analysis of Structure and Tracking (MAST), and a corresponding multi-decadal dataset was constructed for the western North Pacific (WNP) basin covering 1984&amp;ndash;2023. Technical validation shows that MAST successfully detects 96 % of the mesovortex couple associated with observed tropical cyclogenesis events at the formation time, with more than 50 % of cases identifiable as early as 48 h prior to formation. A comparative analysis further reveals systematic differences in the vertical tilt evolution of the mesovortex couple: genesis cases exhibit a steady reduction in tilt with time, whereas non-genesis cases maintain a persistently large tilt of approximately 200 km. The MAST framework extends the long-term record of mesoscale vortex evolution during the pre-formation stage and provides a valuable resource for understanding tropical cyclogenesis, numerical model evaluation, and machine-learning-based genesis prediction.</p>
</abstract>
<counts><page-count count="27"/></counts>
<funding-group>
<award-group id="gs1">
<funding-source>National Natural Science Foundation of China</funding-source>
<award-id>No. 42192551</award-id>
</award-group>
</funding-group>
</article-meta>
</front>
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