Hurricanes Help Balance The Weather
Without an occasional hurricane, the world’s weather might be even worse. Fierce tropical storms play a vital part in maintaining the heat balance between the tropics and polar regions. The tropics and subtropics receive more heat from the sun than they lose by radiation. To prevent cooling of the poles and scorching of the equatorial regions hurricanes help keep the balance. “If hurricane control were successful and none were allowed to go through their full life cycle,” says Gordon E. Dunn, former director of the National Hurricane Center at Miami, “nature would undoubtedly find some other method of maintaining the heat balance, and who can say that this new method might not be even more disastrous than the hurricane?” (Encyclopedia of Illustrations #12267).