Climatic controls on hurricane patterns: a 1200-y near-annual record from Lighthouse Reef, Belize

Area of Science:

• Paleoclimatology
• Climate Science
• Oceanography

Background:

• Tropical cyclones (TCs) significantly impact destruction, making understanding their climatic controls crucial.
• While short-term TC patterns are documented, long-term (centuries to millennia) influences remain unclear.
• High-resolution paleo-TC strike records are needed to constrain these long-term relationships.

Purpose of the Study:

• To reconstruct a high-resolution record of paleo-TC strikes.
• To investigate the relationship between past TC activity and climate shifts over millennial timescales.
• To differentiate between local and large-scale climatic drivers of TC regimes.

Main Methods:

• Analysis of a detailed sedimentary proxy record from the Blue Hole, Lighthouse Reef, Belize.
• High-resolution temporal analysis of paleo-TC strike evidence.
• Comparison of TC activity with established paleoclimate indicators and circulation patterns.

Main Results:

• A highly detailed sedimentary proxy record of paleo-TC strikes was established.
• Shifts between active and inactive TC regimes were identified.
• These shifts correlate with hemispheric-scale oceanic and atmospheric circulation patterns (e.g., MDR SSTs, NAO).

Conclusions:

• Past TC regime shifts are linked to major oceanic and atmospheric circulation changes.
• Local climate phenomena are not the primary drivers of long-term TC regime variability.
• This research provides crucial insights into millennial-scale climate-TC interactions.