Could we cool the ocean by reflecting away sunlight to influence hurricanes? I was wondering if we could possibly reduce the severity of, or steer a hurricane by changing albedo (e.g. dying the part ocean with a temporary light colored dye)?  My thought would be to put this dye well in front of the path of a hurricane, with enough time to reflect the sunlight back off the ocean and cool the ocean surface.  When the hurricane arrives there, the ocean surface should then be cooler, leading to the hurricane being less powerful.  I am also wondering if this could be used to steer the hurricane somehow (e.g. if a hurricane would be drawn to or repelled away from cool ocean surface).  If so, could we use that to steer a hurricane away from populated areas?

Some potential methods (there may be others):


Use light colored dye injected into the ocean
Use light colored smoke to block the sun from reaching the ocean
Possibly use "cloud seeding" ahead of the hurricane and form clouds to block the sun light from warming the ocean. - Covered in the alternate question
Perhaps a "surface film" could also be applied temporarily to part of the ocean (sort of like a "light colored oil spill", hopefully with something safer for the environment than oil). - Covered in the alternate question


If this experiment were to be conducted, I would think it should be done far from inhabited land.  Environmental impacts would need to be thought out too, e.g. would a film block the carbon dioxide / oxygen exchange in that area and cause severe environmental impact?  Could the experiment actually strengthen instead of weaken a hurricane?

Edit:

The linked question and answer addresses some, but not all the methods I propose here.  It also proposes some other methods, definitely an interesting read!
Water has a large thermal capacity. 


  which is why the temperature change between seasons is gradual rather than sudden, especially near the oceans.


For water to lose heat time is required. By changing the albedo of the ocean just prior to a hurricane/cyclone/typhoon passing over a section of water will not give the water enough time to cool down to have any significant effect.

If it were possible to change the temperature of water to minimize the strength of hurricanes/typhoons/cyclones, large sections of ocean would need to have their albedos changed for a long period of time.