Latest / Talking Science / Cyclones, Hurricanes and Typhoons — Engines of the Warm Ocean

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Cyclones, Hurricanes and Typhoons — Engines of the Warm Ocean · Talking Science

0:00
So if you ever find yourself standing in the
0:03
exact center of a category five hurricane, you
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know, the sky overhead might actually be completely
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clear. Yeah, it's wild to think about. Right.
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You might literally see the sun shining or the
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stars twinkling if it's night and just feel this
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gentle breeze. Exactly. But just a few miles
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away from that completely peaceful spot. There
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is a natural machine generating more energy in
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a single day than our entire global electrical
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grid produces in that same time frame. It's just
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massive scale. It is. Welcome to the Deep Dive,
0:33
everyone. Today, we're opening up a really fascinating
0:35
stack of meteorological research, oceanic data,
0:38
and climate physics. We want to completely dismantle
0:43
how you view these massive storms. Yeah, we're
0:45
going to, you know, strip away all the complex
0:47
jargon and just look at the absolute fundamental
0:50
mechanics of what makes them tick. Because it
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really requires a shift in perspectives, doesn't
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it? When we see those satellite images on the
0:56
news, it usually just looks like pure, unadulterated
1:00
chaos. Oh, for sure. It looks like an angry swirl
1:02
of clouds that's just out to ruin millions of
1:05
people's days. Right, like a random act of atmospheric
1:07
violence. Exactly. But once you look at the underlying
1:10
physics that we have here in the source material,
1:13
that image of a chaos. chaotic swirl totally
1:16
transforms. You start to see it differently.
1:18
You do. You start to see a very precise, very
1:21
powerful, and highly organized machine. But before
1:25
we get into how that machine actually operates,
1:28
there's a quick naming convention thing we need
1:30
to clear up. Oh, the hurricane versus typhoon
1:32
thing. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Because the data
1:34
we're looking at covers hurricanes, typhoons,
1:37
and cyclones. Honestly, for the longest time,
1:40
I just assumed those were completely distinct
1:42
types of weather events. A lot of people do.
1:45
Right. Like I figured maybe a typhoon had more
1:47
rain or, I don't know, a cyclone spun faster.
1:50
It's an incredibly common assumption, but meteorologically
1:53
speaking, there is literally zero difference
1:55
between them. None at all. None. They are all
1:58
exactly the same atmospheric beast. The only
2:00
thing that changes is the real estate. So it's
2:03
basically just a regional dialect thing. Simply
2:06
put, yeah. The overarching scientific term for
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the phenomenon we're looking at today is a tropical
2:11
cyclone. Okay. So that's just a vast rotating
2:14
storm born over warm tropical seas. If that tropical
2:18
cyclone happens to form in the North Atlantic
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or the eastern North Pacific, it gets called
2:24
a hurricane. Got it. But if it forms in the Northwest
2:26
Pacific, it's a typhoon. And if you're down in
2:30
the South Pacific or the Indian Ocean near Australia,
2:34
for example, they just call it a cyclone. I love
2:36
that. It's literally like regional names for
2:39
soft drinks. That's a good way to look at it.
2:41
Depending on where you travel, people call it
2:43
soda or pop or Coke. They're completely different
2:46
labels based on where you're standing. But it
2:48
is the exact same bubbly drink in your glass.
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The flavor profile hasn't changed at all. That
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is a perfect framework. The ingredients in the
2:56
atmosphere are identical. So understanding how
2:59
a hurricane works means you automatically understand
3:00
typhoons and cyclones. Okay, that simplifies
3:04
things for sure. Right, but to really understand
3:05
them, we have to throw away the idea that they're
3:07
just, you know, big storms. Right, the research
3:10
says there's something else. Exactly. The fundamental
3:12
thesis of the atmospheric science here is that
3:15
a tropical cyclone is actually a heat engine.
3:19
A heat engine. Like a car engine. In a very literal
3:22
thermodynamic sense, yes. A heat engine is simply
3:26
a system that converts heat into mechanical energy,
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or in this case, wind. Okay, I'm following. So
3:32
a tropical cyclone is basically a machine designed
3:34
by nature to draw vast amounts of warmth out
3:37
of the ocean and convert it directly into kinetic
3:40
energy. Well, if it's an engine, it needs fuel,
3:42
right? Yeah. I'm assuming the fuel is the warm
3:45
ocean water. You'd be right. Warm water is the
3:48
baseline requirement. You cannot start this engine
3:50
on a cold day. Makes sense. A tropical cyclone
3:52
requires an ocean surface that's heated to at
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least 26 .5 degrees Celsius. Which is about 80
3:59
degrees Fahrenheit for those using that scale.
4:01
Basically bath water. Very warm bath water. But
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here's the critical part that most people miss.
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That warmth can't just be a thin layer baking
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at the very top of the water. Oh, really? No,
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that 80 degree heat has to reach down to a depth
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of at least 50 meters. Wait, 50 meters? That's
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roughly 160 feet. Right. It needs a massive,
4:21
deep reservoir of heat. But wait, why does the
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depth even matter? I mean, the storm is up in
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the sky. The air is only touching the very top
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layer of the ocean, isn't it? Think about what
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happens when wind blows across a liquid. It creates
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waves, right? Sure. And it aggressively churns
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the water. As soon as a storm starts to develop
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and spin, those winds violently mix the ocean's
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surface. Oh, I see where this is going. Yeah.
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If that warm water is only a few inches deep,
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the storm's own churning will just pull up freezing
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cold water from the depths. So it would essentially
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suffocate itself. Exactly. It would kill its
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own fuel supply instantly. The cold water would
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hit the surface. The heat transfer would just
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stop and the engine would stall out before it
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even really got going. That makes total sense.
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So that deep 50 meter pool of hot water ensures
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that no matter how much the storm churns the
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ocean, it just keeps pulling up more hot fuel.
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Okay, so we've got our fuel tank. A massive,
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deep pool of hot ocean water. How does the engine
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actually fire up, though? Like, what's the spark
5:23
plug? The spark is a process involving something
5:25
called latent heat. Latent heat, okay. It starts
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with the air just above that warm sea surface.
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The ocean naturally heats that air. And as we
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know, warm, moist air naturally rises. Right.
5:38
Heat rises. Exactly. And as this wet air travels
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upward into the cooler parts of the upper atmosphere,
5:44
its temperature starts to drop. And when wet
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air cools down, the water vapor condenses. Sort
5:50
of like the water droplets forming on the outside
5:52
of a cold glass of iced tea on a hot summer day.
5:55
That's spot on. And that condensation is the
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absolute core of the engine. Really. Just water
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condensing. Yep. Because what we don't often
6:03
perceive on a human level is the invisible energy
6:05
exchange happening during that process. Think
6:08
back to how that water became vapor in the first
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place. Okay, the sun. Right. The sun beat down
6:12
on the ocean using a massive amount of solar
6:14
energy to evaporate liquid water into a gas.
6:17
And that solar energy didn't just disappear.
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It was physically stored inside the water vapor.
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Oh, so it acts like a battery. The water vapor
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is holding onto the sun's energy as it floats
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up into the sky. That is a brilliant idea. Analogy,
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yes. And when that vapor cools and condenses
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back into liquid cloud droplets, that battery
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discharges. Wow. The scientific term for this
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is latent heat. It's the heat released when water
6:43
changes from a gas back to a liquid. So all that
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stored solar energy is suddenly dumped back into
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the surrounding atmosphere as raw heat. Exactly.
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By forming a cloud, the air is literally heating
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itself up all over again. That is wild. And consider
6:58
what warm air wants to do. It wants to rise.
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Right. So this newly released latent heat warms
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the air in the cloud, causing it to shoot upward
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at a much faster rate. Almost like hitting the
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gas pedal. Exactly. And as it rockets up, it
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creates an area of low pressure, basically a
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giant vacuum down at the surface of the ocean.
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Which acts like a straw. Yes. Yeah. violently
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sucking up even more warm, moist air from the
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surface. Which then rises, cools, condenses,
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and releases even more heat. It's a continuous
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self -feeding loop. The warm ocean feeds rising
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air, the condensation releases latent heat, and
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that heat drives more air upward. Once that cycle
7:36
gets organized, it continuously feeds itself.
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Drawing immense, terrifying amounts of energy
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straight out of that deep water. Exactly. But,
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you know, if this loop is so perfectly self -sustaining...
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What stops it? What do you mean? Well, if the
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ocean is the fuel tank and latent heat is the
7:51
spark plug just continuously firing. Yeah. Why
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doesn't a hurricane just consume the entire atmosphere?
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Like, why does it ever stop growing? Ah, okay.
7:59
Well, the engine actually has some very specific
8:01
vulnerabilities. Okay. The most obvious one is
8:04
its absolute reliance on that deep, warm water
8:06
we talked about. Right, the fuel line. Exactly.
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The very moment a tropical cyclone moves over
8:11
land or crosses into a patch of cooler ocean
8:14
water, that fuel line is severed. So no more
8:17
warm, moist air. Right. Without that constant
8:20
intake of moisture to provide latent heat, the
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engine just sputters. Friction from the land
8:26
tears at it a bit, sure, but the primary cause
8:28
of death is simply starvation. That makes a lot
8:31
of sense. But right now, in our mental model,
8:33
we just have this, like, giant invisible elevator
8:37
of hot, wet air shooting straight up into the
8:40
sky. True. Heat rising off a hot parking lot
8:43
doesn't turn into a spinning buzzsaw. So where
8:46
does the defining characteristic, the terrifying
8:49
rotation, actually come from? The spin is a gift
8:53
from the rotation of the Earth itself through
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something called the Coriolis effect. The Coriolis
8:57
effect. Yeah. Because our planet is constantly
9:00
turning on its axis, anything that moves long
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distances across its surface gets deflected.
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It simply cannot travel in a perfectly straight
9:07
line relative to the ground. Oh, I've heard an
9:10
analogy for this. It's like if you tried to draw
9:12
a perfectly straight line with a marker on a
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vinyl record while it's playing on the turntable.
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That's a good one. Your hand is moving straight,
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but because the record is turning underneath
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it, you end up drawing. a curved line on the
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label. That is the exact physics at play. So
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in the northern hemisphere, the Earth's rotation
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deflects moving air to the right, and in the
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southern hemisphere, it deflects it to the left.
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Okay. Now, go back to that giant elevator of
9:35
rising air we built. It's creating a massive
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vacuum of low pressure at the ocean surface,
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right? Right. And air is rushing inward from
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all directions to fill that void. But because
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the Earth is spinning, that rushing air gets
9:48
curved on its way to the center. Exactly. As
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the air rushes toward the center, the Coriolis
9:54
effect bends its path. So in the north, it gets
9:56
deflected to the right, which sets up a massive
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anticlockwise rotation. You've got it. And in
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the south, the deflection to the left creates
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a clockwise spin. That planetary nudge is what
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takes a disorganized cluster of rising thunderstorms
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and winds them up into a tightly rotating cyclone.
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Now, the meteorological data we're looking at
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highlights a really bizarre geographic quirk
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about this spin, though. Yeah. Something about
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the equator. The equator quirk is so fascinating.
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The Coriolis effect is very strong near the poles.
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But due to the geometry of a sphere, it actually
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vanishes completely right at the equator. Completely.
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Like zero deflection. Zero deflection. Which
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means, logically, if there's no deflection to
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curve the wind... Cyclones literally cannot form
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at the equator. That is crazy. Even if the water's
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boiling hot, they just can't get their spin.
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Exactly. If a storm tries to form right on the
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equator, the air just rushes straight into the
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low pressure center. It fills the vacuum immediately.
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So no curve, no spin, no cyclone. Right. For
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the engine to organize, the storm needs to be
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at least 5 degrees of latitude north or south
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of the equator just to catch enough of that Coriolis
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effect to start winding up. Okay, so we have
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the deep pool of 80 -degree water, and we're
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far enough away from the equator to get a spin
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going. Are we guaranteed a hurricane now? Not
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quite. Yeah. There is one final atmospheric condition
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required, and it acts as the great shredder of
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developing storms. The shredder. Sounds ominous.
11:24
Meteorologists call it wind shear. Wind shear.
11:26
Right. Wind shear is when the speed or the direction
11:30
of the wind changes drastically as you move higher
11:33
up in the atmosphere. So they're blowing different
11:35
ways at different heights. Exactly. So the surface
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winds might be blowing gently to the east, but
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five miles up in the sky, the winds are screaming
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to the west at 60 miles per hour. Okay, let me
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think about how that affects our rising column
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of air. It's almost like playing a game of Jenga.
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Jenga. Okay, I'm listening. Where you spent all
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this time perfectly stacking those wooden blocks.
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Yeah. Building this neat vertical tower of rising
12:00
heat and moisture, right? Right. And wind shear
12:03
is like someone walking by and just flicking
12:05
the top block as hard as they can. That is exactly
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what happens mechanically. The whole stack tilts,
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loses its center of gravity, and falls apart.
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Yes. The rising air is trying to build a vertical
12:15
chimney to vent the heat. If there is high wind
12:19
shear, the upper levels of that chimney get blown
12:21
completely off center. And it just ruins the
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whole engine. The heat gets blown away from the
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core, the pressure at the surface can't drop,
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and the storm just fizzles out into a disorganized
12:31
cluster of rain clouds. Wow. So you have a true
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Goldilocks situation. You need water that is
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just the right depth and temperature, a distance
12:40
from the equator that provides just the right
12:42
amount of spin, and upper -level winds that are
12:45
perfectly calm and uniform. It is almost a miracle
12:48
they managed to form at all when you put it like
12:50
that. It really is. But of course, when those
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delicate conditions are met simultaneously, the
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storm organizes. And once it's fully formed,
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it develops a highly specific, deadly anatomical
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structure. It does. Let's walk through the anatomy
13:04
of this monster for the listeners. If we were
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to fly a plane from the absolute outside edge
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of a cyclone straight through to the dead center,
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what is the sequence of events? Well, approaching
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from the outside, the first structure you encounter
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are the rain bands. The rain bands? Yeah, these
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are the long curved arms of heavy rain and squally
13:22
wind spiraling outward from the center. You see
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them on radar as giant sweeping arcs. Okay, so
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what does that feel like on the ground? Well,
13:30
they come in distinct bands. meaning you'll get
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hit with torrential rain and fierce wind for
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a bit, and then it might actually ease off slightly.
13:38
Giving you a false sense of security. Exactly.
13:40
Only for the next band to sweep over you a little
13:43
while later. So you get this pulsing, rhythmic
13:46
beating before the main event. Right. And as
13:49
you push further inward, that pulsing stops,
13:51
and you hit a solid, continuous wall of absolute
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fury. This would be the eye wall. Yes. This is
13:59
the eyewall. It's a ring of towering, dense thunderstorms
14:04
completely encircling the center of the cyclone.
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And that's where the actual heat engine is firing
14:09
at maximum capacity, right? Precisely. That is
14:12
where the air from the ocean is rising the most
14:14
violently. All that latent heat is being released
14:17
in this concentrated ring. So it's the worst
14:19
part of the storm. Without a doubt. Consequently,
14:21
it's where the winds are at their absolute fiercest
14:24
and the rain is the most blinding. If you're
14:26
on the ground, the eye wall is simply the most
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dangerous, destructive part of the storm structure.
14:31
But if you manage to push through that incredibly
14:34
violent wall, suddenly everything stops. You
14:37
step right into the eye. The dead center of the
14:39
pinwheel. Yeah. The eye is a region of profound
14:42
calm. The winds drop to a breeze. The rain stops
14:46
entirely. And the skies often clear up, right?
14:49
Like you can see bright sunshine during the day.
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Sunshine during the day. Or you look up and see
14:54
the stars at night. You are standing in an eerily
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peaceful cylinder surrounded by a 360 degree
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stadium of towering black clouds. I've always
15:04
wondered why it's so calm in the middle of a
15:06
literal atmospheric blender. Like physically,
15:10
how does that work? Well, the physics of the
15:12
engine actually force it to be calm. Really?
15:15
Yeah. All that air rushing upward in the eye
15:17
wall has to go somewhere when it hits the top
15:19
of the storm. Most of it gets pushed outward,
15:21
exhausting away from the storm. But a little
15:23
bit of it actually gets pushed inward toward
15:26
the center and begins to slowly sink down the
15:28
middle. Oh, it sinks down into the eye. Exactly.
15:31
And as air sinks, it warms up and dries out.
15:34
Sinking air suppresses any cloud formation, which
15:37
basically... acts like an eraser, just completely
15:40
clearing the sky inside the eye. You know, what
15:43
really stands out to me here is the psychological
15:45
torture of the eye. It is nature's ultimate false
15:48
reprieve. Oh, absolutely. Because if you're sheltering
15:51
in your house, the first half of the eye wall
15:53
hits you. It sounds like a freight train. You
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know, trees are snapping, roofs are tearing off.
15:59
And then sunshine. Exactly. The birds might even
16:02
start chirping. And the human instinct is to
16:05
go outside. To check on your neighbors, to think
16:08
the worst is finally over. But it's a terrifying
16:11
trick. Because if you step outside in that calm,
16:14
you are literally standing inside the hollow
16:16
center of a moving buzzsaw. The storm hasn't
16:19
stopped, it's still moving forward over the land.
16:21
Which means that peaceful eye is going to slide
16:23
right past you and the back half of the eye wall
16:25
is going to hit you. And this is where the physics
16:27
becomes structurally devastating. Why is the
16:30
second half worse? Well, because the storm is
16:32
spinning in a circle, the winds in that second
16:34
half of the eye wall will be blowing from the
16:36
exact opposite direction as the first half. Oh,
16:39
wow. I didn't even think about that. Yeah. So
16:41
a tree or a power pole that was pushed to its
16:44
absolute breaking point, leaning south for two
16:47
hours, suddenly gets slammed with maximum force
16:50
leaning north. So it's that back and forth whiplash.
16:53
Exactly. That reversal of pressure is what causes
16:57
so much infrastructure to finally just fail.
17:00
What with winds that fierce. And the structure
17:03
that destructive. It makes total sense that we
17:05
rate these storms based on their wind speed.
17:07
Yeah. I mean, we hear about category one through
17:09
category five storms constantly on the news.
17:12
We do. And the Saffir -Simpson hurricane wind
17:14
scale is immensely useful for meteorologists
17:17
to categorize structural wind threat. Right.
17:20
But relying on it exclusively to communicate
17:22
danger to the general public can actually be
17:24
deeply misleading. Really? Because I always just
17:27
assumed the category five was objectively the
17:29
worst case scenario and the category. One was
17:32
just, you know, a bad thunderstorm. Well, in
17:34
terms of wind tearing off shingles, yes. The
17:37
scale is based purely on maximum sustained wind
17:40
speed. Okay, so what's the flaw? The flaw in
17:43
our public perception is that wind is rarely
17:45
the thing that kills the most people in a tropical
17:47
cyclone. The water is. The water. We fixate on
17:51
the wind speeds rattling our windows and we completely
17:53
forget about the ocean. Okay, so what exactly
17:56
is the ocean doing while the wind is blowing?
17:58
When a cyclone is churning toward the coast,
18:00
those massive sustained winds act like a bulldozer
18:04
across the surface of the sea. A bulldozer? Yeah.
18:07
They physically pile the ocean water up ahead
18:10
of the storm into a giant elevated dome. And
18:13
when that dome of water surges ashore, it's called
18:15
a storm surge. Ah, right. Storm surge. And we
18:19
aren't talking about, you know, big surfing waves
18:21
here. We're talking about the actual sea level
18:23
rising by three, four or even five meters in
18:27
a matter of minutes. A five meter rise in sea
18:30
level. I mean, that's a two story building. It
18:31
is. That's just a drowning wall of seawater moving
18:34
inland, completely swallowing streets and homes.
18:38
It is. Historically, storm surge is the ultimate
18:41
threat. It is the biggest cause of loss of life.
18:44
And the category scale, being based only on wind,
18:47
doesn't always capture this threat. Because a
18:49
low category storm could still push a lot of
18:52
water. Exactly. A massive sprawling storm might
18:55
only have category two winds, but because it's
18:58
so incredibly wide, it's pushing a mountain of
19:01
water ahead of it that rivals a category four.
19:03
And it isn't just the ocean water that makes
19:05
the category scale misleading, right? The sources
19:07
also mentioned the rain threat. Right. If a cyclone
19:10
is moving very slowly across the land, it acts
19:13
like a giant stalled fire hose. Just dumping
19:16
water in one spot. Yes. It can dump sheer, incomprehensible
19:20
volumes of freshwater rain over a span of days.
19:23
This causes catastrophic inland flooding well
19:26
out of reach of the storm surge and long after
19:28
the extreme winds have actually died down. So
19:31
using only wind categories to communicate the
19:33
danger, it's like rating how dangerous a car
19:36
crash is solely by looking at the speedometer.
19:38
That's an interesting way to put it. Right. But
19:40
it completely ignores the fact that the car is
19:42
currently driving off a cliff into a deep lake.
19:44
Exactly. A so -called weaker Category 1 storm
19:47
that is incredibly slow, holds a massive amount
19:50
of rain, and hits a low -lying coast at high
19:53
tide. That can be a far worse disaster for a
19:57
community than a fast -moving, dry Category 4
20:00
that just quickly blows through. You nailed it.
20:03
A single number categorizing wind simply never
20:06
tells the whole story of a storm's destructive
20:08
potential. Water is the heavy hitter. Which leads
20:11
us to a very natural, if pretty unsettling, conclusion.
20:16
Okay. You mentioned earlier that the engine dies
20:18
when it runs out of 80 degree water. I did. Which
20:20
makes me wonder. If global temperatures are pushing
20:23
ocean heat deeper and wider, are we essentially
20:26
building a bigger fuel tank for these things?
20:28
We really have to look at the thermodynamics
20:30
here. And the research notes a very interesting
20:32
distinction on this point. Okay, what is it?
20:34
The data does not definitively show that we are
20:36
getting more tropical cyclones overall. Wait,
20:38
really? Yeah. The total number of these storms
20:41
globally each year is relatively stable. In some
20:43
specific regions, it might even decline slightly.
20:46
So the atmosphere isn't just firing out dozens
20:48
of extra hurricanes every season. That's at least
20:51
some good news. No, the frequency isn't the primary
20:53
concern. The real danger lies in the physics
20:56
of the storms that do manage to form. Because
20:59
of the larger fuel tank. Exactly. Because we
21:02
have measurably warmed the oceans, the global
21:05
reservoir of heat is deeper and hotter. There
21:08
is simply more high -octane fuel available for
21:11
a storm to tap into. And with a larger fuel tank,
21:14
the engine can rev higher. Exactly. It means
21:16
the strongest storms are much more likely to
21:19
achieve higher maximum intensities. And what
21:22
about the water side of the equation? Like, does
21:24
a warmer engine mean a wetter storm? Yes, because
21:26
warmer air physically expands and has the capacity
21:30
to hold more. more moisture. How much more? The
21:33
established rule in atmospheric physics is that
21:35
the atmosphere holds about seven percent more
21:37
water vapor for every one degree Celsius of warming.
21:40
Seven percent more per degree. I mean, when you're
21:43
talking about storms the size of Texas, that
21:45
is a massive increase in the payload of those
21:47
clouds. It dictates that when the cyclone's engine
21:50
finally condenses that vapor, it results in significantly
21:53
heavier rainfall rates. The flooding potential
21:56
scales up dramatically. And then finally, there's
21:59
the changing baseline for the storm surge. Right,
22:02
because global sea levels are rising overall.
22:04
So every single storm surge is now starting from
22:07
a higher baseline. Exactly. If the ocean off
22:10
the coast is already several inches higher before
22:13
the storm even arrives, that dome of water is
22:16
pushed that much further inland. It inundates
22:19
streets and neighborhoods that might have previously
22:21
been just out of reach. It does. So to put it
22:24
in perspective for someone living on the coast,
22:26
it isn't necessarily that the atmosphere is firing
22:28
a machine gun with more bullets. It's that the
22:31
bullets themselves are getting bigger, heavier,
22:33
and doing much more damage when they hit. That
22:35
is a stark but very accurate summary of the physics.
22:38
The current consensus points to a higher proportion
22:41
of severe storms that carry more water and ride
22:44
in on higher seas. And this distinction is absolutely
22:47
critical for vulnerable coastlines, right? Like
22:50
the massive stretch from Queensland all the way
22:53
around to the northwest of Western Australia.
22:55
Absolutely. They live in the path of these engines
22:57
every single summer. And understanding that the
23:00
mechanics are shifting really dictates how they
23:02
must build and evacuate in the future. It changes
23:04
everything about how we prepare. It has to. Well,
23:06
let's bring this all together for you, the listener.
23:08
The next time you see a satellite image of a
23:11
vast, slowly turning pinwheel on the weather
23:14
channel, you aren't just looking at random chaos.
23:17
Right. You aren't looking at some malevolent
23:19
tantrum of nature. You're looking at one of the
23:21
largest, most powerful natural engines on the
23:24
planet. A machine. Yeah, a machine that is quietly,
23:27
relentlessly. turning the warmth of a summer
23:29
ocean into wind and rain, governed entirely by
23:33
the beautiful, unbreakable laws of physics. And
23:35
knowing about the latent heat battery, the Coriolis
23:38
spin, the deadly wall of the storm surge, and
23:42
that false piece of the eye, it doesn't make
23:45
the storm any less awesome. Not at all. By removing
23:48
the mystery, we replace fear of the unknown with
23:51
a healthy, informed respect for the mechanics
23:54
of our planet. It gives you the exact tools you
23:56
need to understand the true threats behind those
23:59
sensational weather headlines. Exactly. But,
24:02
you know, reading through all this data, it does
24:04
leave us with one really provocative question
24:06
to mull over. Oh yeah. If tropical cyclones are
24:10
essentially giant, natural heat engines designed
24:13
by physics to draw excess heat out of the ocean
24:16
and vent it away into the upper atmosphere. What
24:18
happens to the Earth's delicate global temperature
24:21
balance if a change in climate alters where and
24:24
if these massive natural cooling engines can
24:27
form in the future? Right. If the ocean can't
24:29
vent its heat through these storms, where does
24:32
that heat go? It's a huge question. Something
24:35
to think about the next time the wind starts
24:36
to howl.