• Question: How could sea spray change the strength of natural disasters

    Asked by coconut to Dave on 15 Jun 2011. This question was also asked by kierastoney.
    • Photo: Dave Sproson

      Dave Sproson answered on 15 Jun 2011:

      Hey coconut,

      Typhoons and hurricanes get their energy from the ocean – which is why they only ever form in the tropics where sea surface temperatures are quite high. However, normal theories of how energy is transferred from the ocean to the atmosphere don’t provide enough energy to the atmosphere to be able to produce storms as powerful as the ones we see in the Atlantic and Pacific oceans. So what is possibly happening here is that we’re not accounting for all of the energy which is transferred from spray droplets to the atmosphere as well.

      The rate that the energy is transferred from the ocean to the atmosphere relies on the difference in temperature between the water and the air, and the surface area of the interface. When you put loads of droplets of sea spray into the air, what you’re doing in essence is increasing this surface area, so more energy can flow from the ocean into the air.

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