Reconstructing Tropical Cyclone Activity from Sedimentary Archives

Abstract

The brevity of the instrumental record limits our knowledge of tropical cyclone activity on multidecadal to longer timescales and hampers our ability to diagnose climatic controls. Sedimentary archives containing event beds provide essential data on tropical cyclone activity over centuries and millennia. This review highlights the advantages and limitations of this approach and how these reconstructions have illuminated patterns of tropical cyclone activity and potential climate drivers over the last millennium. Key elements to developing high-quality reconstructions include confident attribution of event beds to tropical cyclones, assessing the potential role of other mechanisms, and evaluating the potential influence of geomorphic changes, sea-level variations, and sediment supply on a settings’ susceptibility to event bed deposition. Millennium-long histories of severe tropical cyclone occurrence are now available from many locations in the western North Atlantic and western North Pacific,revealing clear regional shifts in activity likely related to intervals of large-scale ocean-atmosphere reorganization. ▪ Prior to significant human influence in Earth's climate, natural climate variability dramatically altered patterns of tropical cyclone activity. ▪ For some regions (e.g., The Bahamas and the Marshall Islands), earlier intervals of tropical cyclone activity exceeded what humans have experienced during the recent period of instrumental measurements (∼1850 CE–present). ▪ Risk assessments based on the short instrumental record likely underestimate the threat posed by tropical cyclones in many regions. ▪ Changes in atmospheric and oceanic circulation associated with the Little Ice Age (∼1400–1800 CE) resulted in significant regional changes in tropical cyclone activity. ▪ Given the past sensitivity of tropical cyclone activity to climate change, we should anticipate regional shifts in tropical cyclone activity in response to ongoing anthropogenic warming of the planet.