Yale Climate Connections
In 2012, the temperature of the Gulf of Mexico began rising along a shocking upward trajectory.
Climate change is causing oceans worldwide to warm. But that year, summertime sea surface temperatures in the Gulf of Mexico began heating up at about twice the rate seen in the global oceans. The trend has continued into the 2020s, with sea surface temperatures hitting record highs in both 2024 and 2025. The shift has huge implications for the hurricanes that form in the Gulf – and the people who live along its shores and on the islands that dot its waters.
Hurricanes are heat engines that take heat energy out of the ocean and convert it to the kinetic energy of wind. The maximum intensity that a hurricane can reach increases by about 5-7% per degree Celsius of sea surface temperature increase. So the rise of about half a degree per decade in Gulf sea surface temperatures per decade since 2012 may be causing a 3% per decade increase in the winds of the strongest hurricanes. Because stronger winds cause more destruction, this equates to about a 30% increase in hurricane damage per decade for these strongest storms.
When a hurricane traverses a shallow area of warm ocean waters, its powerful winds churn up cold waters from the depths, cooling the surface and putting the brakes on the storm’s intensification. But when unusually warm ocean waters extend 100 meters or more below the surface, the hurricane’s winds simply stir up more warm water, in some cases allowing dangerous rapid intensification to occur. This phenomenon fueled Hurricane Helene’s furious winds as the storm bore down on Florida in 2024.
