Rethinking Why Typhoons Are Necessary
I was watching this Tagalog video on YouTube. It made me think about the ecological role of typhoons. The Philippines is prone to typhoons the most, while Indonesia is prone to tsunamis. As I was looking at people who wish storms will never come, they never realize the ecological role that storms play. But first, let's look into the reason why typhoons are common in the Pacific Ocean . THE PACIFIC IS WARMER Sea surface temperatures (°C) around the world on July 14, 2016. Image credit: NOAA/ESRL/PSD Warm sea surface water is the fuel that drives tropical cyclones. If you ignore large-scale anomalies like El Niño and La Niña, the waters in the Pacific Ocean are usually warmer than those of the Atlantic Ocean, and the temperatures stay pretty toasty through almost the entire year . If you were to take a swim in the water off the coast of the northern Philippines, it would feel like you dunked yourself into a freshly drawn bath, just as it would if you took a dip in the ocean at a beac...