Chris Mooney is a visiting associate in the 
The other day I showed you a pretty impressive image, from Remote Sensing Systems, of the cold wake left behind after Hurricane/Supertyphoon Ioke passed. The original image, dated Sept 1, is posted below:
Pretty cool, no? But now look at this image, dated Sept 4:
Note how the cold wake has expanded dramatically--and how this has happened long after the storm has passed. Amazing, no?
I spoke with a scientist today who cited this phenomenon as proof that the cold wake left behind by a hurricane is caused by turbulent ocean mixing--drawing cooler water up from the depths--and not simply because the storm is sucking heat out of the upper layers of the ocean and pumping it into the atmosphere. If the latter were the explanation, you wouldn't expect the cold wake to become more pronounced well after the storm has passed.....
