Hurricane Harvey was fueled by record heat in the Gulf of Mexico

Enlarge / Warm sea surface temperatures on August 23, 2017, just before Hurricane Harvey. (credit: NASA Earth Observatory)

We've covered several studies seeking to clarify the role of human-caused climate change in the unbelievable amounts of water Hurricane Harvey dumped on Houston last year. The general approach of these studies was to simulate today's climate and a pre-global-warming climate, and to then compare the behavior of hurricanes around Houston.

Since most people understand that hurricanes are fueled by warm ocean water, however, perhaps it would be conceptually simpler to focus on the seawater beneath Harvey.

That has now been done by a new study led by Kevin Trenberth of the National Center for Atmospheric Research. By analyzing the heat energy present in the Gulf of Mexico-and how much was lost as Harvey spun through-researchers get a fairly direct measure of Harvey's fuel.

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