Led by oceanographer Anand Gnanadesikan, the study used computer simulations to look for links between ocean color and strong tropical cyclones—called hurricanes in the North Atlantic Ocean and the northeastern Pacific and known as typhoons in the northwestern Pacific.

"Our group develops climate models," said Gnanadesikan, of the U.S. Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory in Princeton New Jersey. "One of my jobs is to try to make those more realistic."

One way to make the models more realistic is to look more closely at little-studied variables, such as ocean color.

In the North Pacific the predominant color is green, thanks to an abundance of minute, chlorophyll-packed plants called phytoplankton.

By absorbing sunlight, the floating plants help keep the ocean surface relatively warm. When there