A recent paper in Geophysical Research Letters looked at paleohurricane records in the Bahamas. These records were in the form of sedimentary cores taken from South Andros Island. Scientists wanted to examine the likelihood that climate change in the past was responsible for an increase in the number of hurricanes. Many scientists today argue that the current climate change situation has increased and will continue to increase the overall intensity of hurricanes, but the question remains if the number of hurricanes will also increase.

The team created a model that mimicked the hurricane data found in the sandy layers of the Bahamas, and they used that model to generate 1,000 different pseudorecords using the same climate simulation. Each of these pseudorecords contained a similar mix of quiet and active periods to the original cores. And the team found that the outcomes were random; the intervals of active and quiet did not sync up with the changes in climate.

It should be noted that this doesn’t mean hurricanes occur randomly. It means that this one location’s hurricane history cannot be explained by long-term changes in the climate. The team hopes to conduct broader, more global studies of paleohurricane data in the future. It would be nice to have a better idea of how bad our hurricane seasons might get.

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Eos article

“Centennial‐Scale Shifts in Storm Frequency Captured in Paleohurricane Records From The Bahamas Arise Predominantly From Random Variability,” Elizabeth J. Wallace et al., 2020 December 6, Geophysical Research Letters