Hurricanes and tropical storms are heat engines operating between warm tropical oceans and the cold upper troposphere. The purpose of this article is to examine the existing theories for hurricanes and tropical storms, and to discuss their validity. It is argued that contrary to previous claims that hurricanes are Carnot engines, these systems operate at efficiencies considerably below their maximum thermodynamic efficiency. As such, the validity of the current theories of thermodynamics of hurricanes remains questionable, and the phenomenon continues to be a geophysical enigma.
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