Only rising sea surface temperatures was found to influence hurricane intensity in a statistically significant way over a long-term basis.
While sea surface temperature is important for tropical cyclogenesis, it is also important in determining the formation of sea fog and sea breezes. Heat from underlying warmer waters can significantly modify an air mass over distances as short as 35 kilometres (22 mi) to 40 kilometres (25 mi). Sea surface temperature (SST) is the water temperature close to the ocean 's surface. The exact meaning of surface varies according to the measurement method used, but it is between 1 millimetre (0.04 in) and 20 metres (70 ft) below the sea surface In the Atlantic and Northeast Pacific, we use the term hurricane to describe severe storms with high-velocity winds that rotate around a central, low-pressure core. The same type of disturbance in the Northwest Pacific is called a “typhoon” and “cyclones” occur in the South Pacific and Indian Ocean.  Of these factors, only rising sea surface temperatures was found to influence hurricane intensity in a statistically significant way over a long-term basis. The other factors affected hurricane activity on short time scales only. A rise in the world's sea surface temperatures was the primary contributor to the formation of stronger hurricanes since 1970, a new study reports. In the tropical oceans, the sea surface temperature (SST) is much warmer than that of the deeper water below the surface. In an ocean layer called the thermocline, the transition from warm water to cold water occurs rapidly. While the sea surface cools in response to this evaporation, the magnitude of the cooling is generally small compared to the cooling that results from other processes caused by the hurricane’s surface winds. To understand these other processes, it is necessary to look beneath the sea surface. This eventually causes rotation of the storm mass and you get a tropical cyclone. So, the high sea surface temperatures and humidity are actually the engine that forms a hurricane and causes it to increase in strength. High level horizontal winds can prevent a hurricane from forming.  The ocean plays a leading role in the Earth's climate. Hurricane Gustav was one of a series of hurricanes to strike the United States in 2008. Hurricanes originate over the tropical regions of the ocean under conditions where high humidity, light winds, and warm sea surface temperatures combine. The ocean plays an important role in shaping our climate and weather patterns. By analyzing the paths of almost 1,000 tropical cyclones, as well as data about the sea surface temperature and height before and after each storm, Ferrari and his students estimate that only about one-quarter of the warm water that is mixed downward by a hurricane remains in the ocean for more than a season. When a hurricane passes over an ocean, its powerful winds stir and mix the warm surface water with the colder, deeper water. This mixing results in warm water being forced down into the deep ocean and cold water being brought to the surface layer. This video segment adapted from NOVA scienceNOW highlights research that supports the idea that warmer oceans generate and sustain more intense hurricanes. Ongoing monitoring of sea surface temperature (SST) has supplied evidence that the world's oceans warmed 0.5°C between 1970 and 2005. Because hurricanes rely on warm water to release heat into the upper atmosphere and create spiraling winds, any additional energy can result in increased intensity.  While warm water temperatures fuel hurricanes, a storm then cools down the sea surface. It is nature's way of moving energy from the tropics northward and dumping it, as rain, in places like the United States. The only way you can supply energy is by cooling the surface. The warmer the sea surface temperature, the more intense the hurricanes.. Other studies suggest global warming won't abate for more than a century, no matter what industry might do to curb greenhouse gases.
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Why does sea surface temperature affect hurricanes