• Atmospheric Sciences

    • Intense hurricane activity over the past 5,000 years controlled by El Niño and the West African monsoon

      • Jeffrey P. Donnelly, Jonathan D. Woodruff,
      • Original article citation: Nature 447, (2007).
      • Categories: Atmospheric Sciences, Paleoclimate, and Extreme Events
      • Recommended by: Olive Heffernan on 06/06/2007 09:19PM GMT
      • Reasons for recommending:
        In this recent Nature paper, Jeffrey Donnelly and Jonathan Woodruff of Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution looked at the relationship between the number of hurricanes over the past 5,000 years and changes in the El Nino Southern Oscillation and the West African monsoon. They analyzed sediment from a Caribbean lagoon that contains preserved records of past hurricane landfalls and found that variations in El Niño and the African jet stream significantly influenced hurricane activity during this period. This suggests that climate change is not the only factor determining hurricane variability.

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