How do temperatures vary in a hurricane, vertically, from the ocean surface to the top?
KERRY: If you look at a photograph of a hurricane from space, what you see, of course, is this beautiful white spiral mass of clouds. It’s a little bit hard to tell, but those clouds extend from very close to the ocean surface up about ten miles high. And, the ocean surface is at a pretty high temperature. If anybody’s been to the tropics, they know that. It’s in the upper 80’s Fahrenheit, or 25° to 30° Centigrade. But the tops of the clouds in a hurricane represent the temperature that you find in the upper part of the atmosphere. It’s very, very cold. It’s around -80° Centigrade, or well below -100° Fahrenheit. And, it’s something not too many people know about, the tropical atmosphere. It’s true everywhere in the atmosphere. It gets colder as you go up. That’s why there’s snow on top of Mt. Kilimanjaro, which is nearly at the Equator. But if you go very far up, way above the tops of mountains, it’s even colder. And, it can be very, very cold. So, the hurricane is operating across a
