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Devac  ·  1865 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: Space is Weird | Saturn's Hexagonal Polar Vortex

This is such a petty nitpick that I'm almost ashamed of pointing it out, but oceans aren't heatsinks for hurricanes. What drives them in the first place is the disequilibrium between the atmosphere and ocean. That's why they form over large swaths of warm evaporating water and dissipate once they go inland. Here -> ftp://texmex.mit.edu/pub/emanuel/PAPERS/Amer_sci.pdf (ftp links don't work) is a great paper on the topic by Kerry A. Emmanuel.