Session 5B.3 An Atlantic Tropical Cyclone Intensification Index for the Last 2000 Years: A Significant ~510 Year Climate Cyclic Pulse Reconstructed

Tuesday, 29 April 2008: 8:30 AM
Palms E (Wyndham Orlando Resort)
Jorge Sanchez-Sesma, Instituto Mexicano de Tecnologia del Agua, Jiutepec, Morelos, Mexico

Presentation PDF (106.5 kB)

The occurrences and impacts of Atlantic tropical cyclones (ATC), which in their higher intensities are known as hurricanes, tend to vary from interannual to interdecadal, and longer time-scales. In order to understand what are the global warming and natural oscillations influences on ATCs, is important to detect its long-term climate trends and oscillations. Based on historical and instrumental ATC recently updated records, and a hydrological proxy records from the Caribbean, this paper proposes and reconstruct an ATC intensification index (II) for almost the last 2 millennia. The reconstructed ATC II record shows an oscillation of around 510 years long. Interestingly, this ATC II oscillation period is approximately coincident with variations found in great scale climatic phenomena, such as the northern hemispheric temperature, NAO, Arctic Circulation, other Atlantic and European climate processes, confirming the existence of climate multicentennial-scale variations & trends. More specifically, our results also show the complex natural mechanisms of ATC variations, where centennial scale oscillations persist for millenia.
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