Extreme ocean conditions of the 2024 hurricane season formed by rare combination of drivers

Harris, E. A. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0274-560X; Marsh, R.; Grist, J. P. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1068-9211; Blaker, A. T ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5454-0131. 2025 Extreme ocean conditions of the 2024 hurricane season formed by rare combination of drivers. Geophysical Research Letters, 52 (21). 10.1029/2025GL116580

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Text © 2025. The Author(s).This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited Geophysical Research Letters - 2025 - Harris - Extreme Ocean Conditions of the 2024 Hurricane Season Formed by Rare.pdf - Published Version Available under License Creative Commons Attribution 4.0. Download (2MB) | Preview

Abstract/Summary

Record heat was observed in the tropical North Atlantic in 2023 and 2024. However, in 2024, in contrast to the previous year, most of the record-breaking surface and sub-surface temperatures were focused in the western two thirds of the basin. This allowed for intensification of hurricanes into major storms prior to landfall. Water mass transformation analysis reveals much of the anomalous warm water volume arose from atmospheric heat flux into the ocean. Lagrangian analysis then shows how, atypically, warm water was advected to the west by a rarely observed zonal pathway. Thus, combined heat exchanges via air-sea heat transfer and ocean currents coordinated to result in record breaking temperatures in the western tropical Atlantic in 2024, allowing development of landfalling major hurricanes when atmospheric and oceanic conditions were aligned and conducive to tropical cyclone development.

Item Type:	Publication - Article
Digital Object Identifier (DOI):	10.1029/2025GL116580
ISSN:	0094-8276
Additional Keywords:	record warm ocean, hurricane intensification, atmospheric heat flux, Lagrangian analysis, water mass transformation
NORA Subject Terms:	Marine Sciences
Date made live:	03 Dec 2025 17:16 +0 (UTC)
URI:	https://nora.nerc.ac.uk/id/eprint/540690

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