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Persistent northward North Atlantic tropical cyclone track migration over the past five centuries.

Baldini, L.M and Baldini , J.U.L and McElwaine, J. and Frappier, A.B. and Asmerom, Y. and Liu, K.B. and Prufer, K. and Ridley, H.E. and Polyak, V. and Kennett, D.J. and Macpherson, C.G. and Aquino, V.V. and Awe, J. and Breitenbach, S.F.M. (2016) 'Persistent northward North Atlantic tropical cyclone track migration over the past five centuries.', Scientific reports., 6 . p. 37522.

Abstract

Accurately predicting future tropical cyclone risk requires understanding the fundamental controls on tropical cyclone dynamics. Here we present an annually-resolved 450-year reconstruction of western Caribbean tropical cyclone activity developed using a new coupled carbon and oxygen isotope ratio technique in an exceptionally well-dated stalagmite from Belize. Western Caribbean tropical cyclone activity peaked at 1650 A.D., coincident with maximum Little Ice Age cooling, and decreased gradually until the end of the record in 1983. Considered with other reconstructions, the new record suggests that the mean track of Cape Verde tropical cyclones shifted gradually north-eastward from the western Caribbean toward the North American east coast over the last 450 years. Since ~1870 A.D., these shifts were largely driven by anthropogenic greenhouse gas and sulphate aerosol emissions. Our results strongly suggest that future emission scenarios will result in more frequent tropical cyclone impacts on the financial and population centres of the northeastern United States.

Item Type:Article
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Status:Peer-reviewed
Publisher Web site:http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/srep37522
Publisher statement:This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in the credit line; if the material is not included under the Creative Commons license, users will need to obtain permission from the license holder to reproduce the material. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
Date accepted:31 October 2016
Date deposited:23 November 2016
Date of first online publication:23 November 2016
Date first made open access:23 November 2016

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