An annually resolved 5700-year storm archive reveals drivers of Caribbean cyclone frequency.
other
Where this comes from
- Record sourced from PubMed, PMID 40085712.
- Also identified by DOI 10.1126/sciadv.ads5624 and PMC identifier 11908496.
- Licence recorded as CC BY-NC.
- Because redistribution is not established, this page shows the abstract only. Follow the links below for the full text.
Abstract
Predictions of tropical cyclone (TC) frequencies are hampered by insufficient knowledge of their natural variability in the past. A 30-m-long sediment core from the Great Blue Hole, a marine sinkhole offshore Belize, provides the longest available, continuous, and annually resolved TC-frequency record. This record expands our understanding, derived from instrumental monitoring (73 years), historical documentations (173 years), and paleotempestological records (2000 years), to the past 5700 years. A total of 694 event layers were identified. They display a distinct regional trend of increasing storminess in the southwestern Caribbean, which follows an orbitally driven shift in the Intertropical Convergence Zone. Superimposed short-term variations match Holocene climate intervals and originate from solar irradiance-controlled sea-surface temperature anomalies and climate phenomena modes. A 21st-century extrapolation suggests an unprecedented increase in TC frequency, attributable to the Industrial Age warming.