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Center for Nonlinear Studies |
The intensity of a tropical hurricane is sensitive to fairly small changes of sea surface temperature (SST), even as little as 1 C. Hurricanes are known to cause cooling of SST by as much as 5 C, suggesting that hurricane-ocean interaction may be an important factor in hurricane intensity. The processes of SST cooling have been studied as part of a recent intensive field program, C BLAST, that included the deployment of floats that measure ocean currents along with temperature and salinity. These data have been analyzed and simulated to investigate SST cooling. The main process of cooling is vertical mixing, evidently in response to high shear (and low Richardson number) within and below the ocean surface mixed layer.
Host: Beth Wingate