system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
The hurricane that struck the Philippines was a "maximum" category 5. Is there really an upper limit to how strong a storm can be?

It does seem like the absolute most powerful storms have wind speeds right around 190 or so. What would it take to get one more powerful than that? Is there some factor that makes it impossible on Earth?
gpt
There's a relationship between surface heat-exchange vs. friction that caps potential storm intensity.  A lot of this stuff is pioneered by Dr. Kerry Emanuel at MIT, who devised the Maximum Potential Intensity (MPI) metric for just this purpose.  One result of his work is that under suitably high sea-surface temperatures, friction cannot keep up with heat-exchange and the cap breaks, leading to the potential for "hypercanes" with vastly higher MPI (500 mph winds being theoretically possible under ideal circumstances).