Earth’s atmosphere over tropical oceans can be viewed as a finally tuned engine reaching peak performance, in terms of heat uptake when SST is at 303K.  Convective instability is similar to ignition in the Carnot cycle.  If the engine fails to fire at the right time and the surface temperature overshoots then any ensuing convective instability will overshoot and the surface will cool below 303K before it reaches instability again.