Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez @AOC
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The hurricane “machine” is climate change.

Cooler ocean temperatures slow hurricane development.

As temps rise, more hurricanes grow.

The Gulf of Mexico is a major location for warming water.

The people who bear responsibility are fossil fuel co’s + the politicians they buy.
4:32 PM · Oct 9, 2024

Chris Martz @ChrisMartzWX
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Hi there, @AOC. 👋

You seem to like science. So, I figured I would give ya an education about this topic. 📚

I took the liberty to plot the Gulf of Mexico (GoM) sea surface temperature anomaly (SSTA) for June-August (JJA) for the period 1900 to 2023. The base period used for this analysis is 1991-2020 and JJA was used because that is what the SSTs are to work with in the GoM going into North Atlantic peak hurricane season (August-October) and SSTs are slow to change due to water's high heat capacity.  I'll drop the link to the KNMI Climate Explorer for you to reproduce this chart at your own will. Give that a lil' click-sy and knock yourself out.  https://climexp.knmi.nl/start.cgi (the bounding box I used was 20-30°N, 80-100°W) The diamonds overlain represent instances when a major hurricane (i.e., a tropical cyclone with maximum sustained wind speeds of ≥111 mph according to the Saffir-Simpson hurricane wind scale) formed in the GoM. Some years have more than major hurricane in the Gulf, so they're represented by one dot.

A total of 75 hurricanes have either formed or tracked through the GoM since 1900.[1] Of those 75, 40 (53.3%) formed with SSTAs 𝒃𝒆𝒍𝒐𝒘 the 1991-2020 mean. That's more than half of the subset.

• [1] 𝑁𝑜𝑡𝑒, 𝐼 𝑒𝑥𝑐𝑙𝑢𝑑𝑒𝑑 𝐻𝑢𝑟𝑟𝑖𝑐𝑎𝑛𝑒𝑠 𝐴𝑢𝑑𝑟𝑒𝑦 (1957) 𝑎𝑛𝑑 𝐴𝑙𝑚𝑎 (1966) 𝑠𝑖𝑛𝑐𝑒 𝑡ℎ𝑒𝑦 𝑓𝑜𝑟𝑚𝑒𝑑 𝑖𝑛 𝐽𝑢𝑛𝑒.

What we can conclude from this analysis is that the formation of major hurricanes in the Gulf of Mexico is not contingent on warming SSTs. The Gulf gets warm enough every year to sustain a major hurricane, even of category four or five status. So, higher SSTs aren't going to add much additional effect, especially if you consider the fact tropical cyclone kinematics require far more environmental parameters to be favorable in order for a major hurricane to form (e.g., pre-existing disturbance, low deep-layer [200-850 hPa] vertical wind shear and no dry air / Saharan dust).

You are oversimplifying a very complex issue that you have little understanding about.