Fig. 3: Tropical cyclone-induced sea surface cooling and overcooling in microwave satellite observations.
From: Weak self-induced cooling of tropical cyclones amid fast sea surface warming
a,b, Spatial pattern of storm-local SST cooling based on drifter observations in the northern and southern hemisphere (NH and SH). Contours of −0.5 °C and −0.8 °C are shown, with arrows denoting cyclones’ moving direction and dashed circles denoting the inner-core area. c,d, Same as a,b, but based on microwave satellite observations. e,f, Same as a,b, but for cooling bias of microwave satellite observations. g,h, Temporal evolutions of average cooling within 100 km of storm centres from drifter (red) and microwave satellite observations (blue) in the NH and SH. Shadings represent the 95% confidence intervals. Vertical dashed lines indicate the time of TC passage. On average, inner-core cooling is −0.68 ± 0.04 °C. Whereas microwave satellite data accurately capture cold wakes, they overestimate the inner-core cooling by 55%.
