At present, we experiencing a number of intense tropical cyclone/low-pressure events over the Bay of Bengal. To uncover this reason, a hypothesis is raised that while the plastic gets in contact with sunlight, wave, and wind stress, it gets disintegrates and floats over the marine environment in a larger area resulting limited depth of penetration of solar energy in the water column. As plastic is an insulator therefore it creates an asymmetry in air-sea interaction leading to surface water accumulating higher temperature compared to subsurface temperature. Therefore, the ocean loses its temperature-bearing capacity and transfers its energy to the atmosphere leading to the intense formation of tropical cyclones in recent decades.
Please correct me if the hypothesis signifies different ?
Interesting hypothesis with solid good thinking!
I would think you would need a lot of plastic pollution in the water to have an effect on the overall water temperature.
Do you have a way to measure the plastic content in the water over a period of time? It would be nice to know.
Right now, the reason why cyclones start in a certain area is the high temperature of the water.
It is a combination of Global Warming and a huge increase of moisture in the atmosphere, plus the very strong influence of atmospheric dust driving or stalling the storms in one direction or another. See https://www.ecoseeds.com/GONU.html --These storms also form from the Pseudomonas host plants living in undisturbed tropical forests in SE Asia, which you can see at https://www.discovermagazine.com/planet-earth/does-rain-come-from-life-in-the-clouds . Also, attached is the image of the Cyclone Yaas from last year getting stalled in the Bay of Bengal by the Pakistan-Arabia Dust Cloud, from the Storm Relative 16 km Water Vapor Images from
rammb-data.cira.coloradostate.edu/tc_realtime/products/storms
It is a very complex situation, because the increase of tropical low pressure occurrence, not only deppend on the large quantity of plastics in the ocean, but by the presence of a large quantuty of sargasus that are increasing every year due, among other things, the Sahara dust