Tropical cyclones (TCs) have the potential to influence regional and global climate through their interactions with the upper ocean. Here we highlight results from a series of ocean-only simulations featuring a high-resolution state-of-the-art Earth system model (Community Earth System Model -- CESM), in which we analyze the effect of tropical cyclone wind forcing on the global ocean using three different horizontal ocean grid spacing (3˚, 1˚, and 0.1˚). Findings indicate that TCs significantly contribute to global ocean heat and energy budgets, pointing to important connections between TCs and ocean dynamics, which can influence seasonal to interannual climate variability and large-scale circulation patterns in the atmosphere and ocean. Furthermore, TCs’ contribution to the climate system may have important implications for anthropogenic global warming through feedbacks in the coupled system, which is one of the scientific questions we seek to answer in the ongoing work.
