Alex and co-authors publish paper on significant surface turbulent heat loss during Hurricane Ian

On December 6, Alex and co-authors (Lisan Yu, Yanxu Chen, Chidong Zhang, and Gregory R. Foltz) published a paper entitled, “Dry Air Outbreak and Significant Surface Turbulent Heat Loss During Hurricane Ian: Satellite and Saildrone Observations” in Geophysical Research Letters: https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1029/2023GL105583. Congrats, Alex!

The three key points of the paper are:

• Hurricane Ian triggered a dry air outbreak, causing substantial turbulent heat loss (>850 Wm−2) and Gulf of Mexico surface cooling (∼1.4°C)
• Winds, not air-sea humidity, are a dominant contributor to turbulent heat flux in the tropical Atlantic warm water pool
• Saildrone’s high-frequency linewise data, differing from satellite’s footprint averages, offer unique insight into high wind variability