Hurricane Heat Engine

  • Released Friday, March 11, 2005
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TRMM provides a closer look at hurricanes using a unique combination of passive and active microwave instruments designed to peer inside cloud systems and measure rainfall. TRMM allows scientists to study the combustion process in the hurricane engine and relate this process to intensification or weakening.Hurricane Energy Process - As water vapor is evaporated from the warm ocean surface, it is forced upward in towering convective clouds in the eyewall and rain band regions of the storm. As the water vapor changes from a gas to a liquid (cloud water), latent heat is released.

This is the standard definition version of the Hurricane Heat Engine - Molecular View animation MPEG.

Credits

Please give credit for this item to:
NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center Conceptual Image Lab

This page was originally published on Friday, March 11, 2005.
This page was last updated on Wednesday, May 3, 2023 at 1:56 PM EDT.