News Climate

How more powerful Pacific cyclones may be fueling global warming

Stronger storms seem to be speeding up the Kuroshio Current, which ferries warm water north

Super-typhoon Mangkhut

Super-typhoon Mangkhut (shown) swept past the Philippines on September 12, 2018, as a Category 5 storm. Collisions of such powerful tropical cyclones with spinning ocean whirlpools called eddies may be accelerating heat-carrying ocean currents like the Kuroshio.

Lauren Dauphine/NASA Earth Observatory (using VIIRS data from the Suomi National Polar-orbiting Partnership)

By Carolyn Gramling

- More than 2 years ago

Increasingly powerful tropical cyclones in the North Pacific Ocean may be fueling a powerful north-flowing ocean current, helping to boost the amount of heat it ferries to northern latitudes.