A major midlatitude hurricane in the Little Ice Age

IF 3.8 2区 地球科学 Q1 GEOSCIENCES, MULTIDISCIPLINARY
John Dickie, Grant Wach
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Abstract

Abstract. An unusually severe hurricane (Louisbourg Storm) struck Nova Scotia, Canada, in 1757. Historic records describing storm conditions as well as damage to ships and coastal fortifications indicate an intensity beyond any modern (post-1851) Atlantic cyclones striking the same region, yet this storm struck during a cold climate period known as the Little Ice Age (LIA). Its track and timing coincided with a British naval blockade of a French fleet at Fortress Louisbourg during the Seven Years' War (1756–1763). This provides a unique opportunity to explore growing scientific evidence of heightened storminess in the North Atlantic despite a colder climate expected to suppress hurricane intensification but which research is increasingly showing to have supported North Atlantic storms of exceptional strength. Weather attributes extracted from the logs of naval vessels scattered by the Louisbourg Storm provided multiple hourly observations recorded at different locations. Wave height and wind force estimates at ship locations were compared to extreme storm surge heights calculated for Louisbourg Harbour and a shipwreck site south of Fortress Louisbourg. Comparing these metrics to those of modern analogues that crossed the same bathymetry reflects landfall intensity consistent with a powerful major hurricane. Historical records show this storm originated as a tropical cyclone at the height of hurricane season and intensified into the northern midlatitudes along the Gulf Stream. Its intensity at landfall is consistent with established seasonal climatological models where highly baroclinic westerlies driven by autumn continental cooling encounter intensifying north-tracking tropical cyclones fuelled by sea surface temperatures that peak in autumn. Stronger seasonal contrasts from earlier and colder continental westerlies in the Little Ice Age (LIA) may have triggered explosive extratropical transition from a large hurricane resulting in a more severe strike. It suggests that tropical cyclones lasting days to weeks and the conditions that generate them are likely masked by cooler historic mean annual to multi-decadal LIA climate reconstructions.
小冰河时期的中纬度大飓风
摘要1757 年,一场异常猛烈的飓风(路易斯堡风暴)袭击了加拿大新斯科舍省。历史记录描述了风暴的情况以及对船只和沿海防御工事造成的破坏,其强度超过了袭击同一地区的任何现代(1851 年以后)大西洋飓风,然而这场风暴发生在气候寒冷的小冰河时期(LIA)。它的路径和时间与七年战争(1756-1763 年)期间英国海军封锁路易斯堡法国舰队的时间相吻合。这为我们提供了一个独特的机会,来探索越来越多的科学证据,证明北大西洋风暴加剧,尽管预计寒冷的气候会抑制飓风的加剧,但越来越多的研究表明,寒冷的气候支持了北大西洋异常强烈的风暴。从被路易堡风暴冲散的海军船只日志中提取的天气属性提供了在不同地点记录的多个小时观测数据。船只位置的波高和风力估计值与路易堡港和路易堡要塞南部沉船遗址计算出的极端风暴潮高度进行了比较。将这些指标与穿越相同水深的现代类似指标进行比较,反映出登陆强度与强大的大飓风相一致。历史记录显示,这场风暴起源于飓风季节高峰期的热带气旋,并沿着湾流加强到北部中纬度地区。它登陆时的强度与已建立的季节气候学模型相一致,在该模型中,秋季大陆降温驱动的高气压西风遇到了因秋季海面温度达到峰值而不断加强的北向热带气旋。在小冰河时期(LIA),较早的大陆西风与较冷的大陆西风形成了更强烈的季节对比,这可能引发了大型飓风的爆炸性外热带过渡,导致更严重的袭击。这表明,持续数天至数周的热带气旋以及产生这些气旋的条件很可能被小冰河时期较冷的历史年平均气候到多年平均气候重建所掩盖。
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来源期刊
Climate of The Past
Climate of The Past 地学-气象与大气科学
CiteScore
7.40
自引率
14.00%
发文量
120
审稿时长
4-8 weeks
期刊介绍: Climate of the Past (CP) is a not-for-profit international scientific journal dedicated to the publication and discussion of research articles, short communications, and review papers on the climate history of the Earth. CP covers all temporal scales of climate change and variability, from geological time through to multidecadal studies of the last century. Studies focusing mainly on present and future climate are not within scope. The main subject areas are the following: reconstructions of past climate based on instrumental and historical data as well as proxy data from marine and terrestrial (including ice) archives; development and validation of new proxies, improvements of the precision and accuracy of proxy data; theoretical and empirical studies of processes in and feedback mechanisms between all climate system components in relation to past climate change on all space scales and timescales; simulation of past climate and model-based interpretation of palaeoclimate data for a better understanding of present and future climate variability and climate change.
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