Hurricanes eat the ocean’s heat.
The ocean heat map above is an excellent illustration of that, as it shows the path of Cat 4 storm Larry across the Atlantic, in the track of cooler (blue) water on the right.
Below, good discussion of how Hurricanes interact with ocean heat, from Kevin Trenberth and Lijing Cheng.
From YCC’s “Eye on the Storm” blog:
“Larry’s size and duration have also made it a potent generator of accumulated cyclone energy (ACE). By itself, Larry has produced nearly 40% of all the ACE from this year’s 13 Atlantic named storms through September 9, and almost three times more ACE than Hurricane Ida, according to Colorado State University.”