More Like this

1. Oceanic passage of hurricanes across Cay Sal Bank in The Bahamas over the last 530 years

   https://doi.org/doi.org/10.1016/j.margeo.2021.106653  

   Tyler S Winkler, Peter J (January 2022, Marine geology)

   Islands across the Bahamian Archipelago have been devastated by five major hurricanes from 2010 to 2020 CE, including Category 5 Hurricane Dorian in 2019 that inundated parts of Abaco and Grand Bahama with up to 4 m of surge, killing 84 people and leaving >245 others missing. Up to 1 m relative sea-level rise is estimated for The Bahamas by 2100 CE, which could enhance flooding from weaker storms ( 

   more » « less
2. Central Equatorial Pacific Warming and Freshening in the Twentieth Century: Insights From a Coral Ensemble Approach

   https://doi.org/10.1029/2021GL094051  

   Hitt, Nicholas T.; Sayani, Hussein R.; Atwood, Alyssa R.; Grothe, Pamela R.; Maupin, Christopher; O’Connor, Gemma K.; Walter, Rachel M.; Gebregiorgis, Daniel; Hardt, Madeleine E.; Lu, Yanbin; et al (December 2021, Geophysical Research Letters)

   Abstract The tropical Pacific influences climate patterns across the globe, yet robust constraints on decadal to centennial‐scale climate variations are difficult to extract from sparse instrumental observations in this region. Oxygen isotope (δ¹⁸O) records from long‐lived corals enable the quantitative reconstruction of tropical Pacific climate variability and trends over the twentieth century and beyond, but such corals are exceedingly rare. Here, we use multiple short coral δ¹⁸O records to create a coral ‘ensemble’ reconstruction of twentieth century climate in the central tropical Pacific. Ten U/Th‐dated fossil coral δ¹⁸O records from Kiritimati Island (2°N, 157°W) span 1891 CE to 2006 CE, with the younger samples enabling quantitative comparison to a large ensemble of modern coral records and instrumental sea surface temperature. A composite record constructed of modern and fossil Kiritimati coral δ¹⁸O records shows a shift toward warmer and fresher conditions from 1970 CE onward, consistent with previously published records in this region. 

   more » « less
3. Revising evidence of hurricane strikes on Abaco Island (The Bahamas) over the last 700 years

   https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-020-73132  

   Winkler, T.; van Hengstum, P.; Donnelly, J.; Wallace, E.; Sullivan, R.; MacDonald, D.; Albury, N. (October 2020, Scientific reports)

   null (Ed.)

   The northern Bahamas have experienced more frequent intense-hurricane impacts than almost anywhere else in the Atlantic since 1850 CE. In 2019, category 5 (Saffir-Simpson scale) Hurricane Dorian demonstrated the destructive potential of these natural hazards. Problematically, determining whether high hurricane activity levels remained constant through time is difficult given the short observational record (< 170 years). We present a 700-year long, near-annually resolved stratigraphic record of hurricane passage near Thatchpoint Blue Hole (TPBH) on Abaco Island, The Bahamas. Using longer sediment cores (888 cm) and more reliable age-control, this study revises and temporally expands a previous study from TPBH that underestimated the sedimentation rate. TPBH records at least 13 ≥ category 2 hurricanes per century between 1500 to 1670 CE, which exceeds the 9 ≥ category 2 hurricanes per century within 50 km of TPBH since 1850 CE. The eastern United States also experienced frequent hurricanes from 1500 to 1670 CE, but frequency was depressed elsewhere in the Atlantic Ocean. This suggests that spatial heterogeneity in Atlantic hurricane activity since 1850 CE could have persisted throughout the last millennium. This heterogeneity is impacted by climatic and stochastic forcing, but additional high-resolution paleo-hurricane reconstructions are required to assess the mechanisms that impact regional variability. 

   more » « less
4. Cryptotephra from the Icelandic Veiðivötn 1477 CE eruption in a Greenland ice core: confirming the dating of volcanic events in the 1450s CE and assessing the eruption's climatic impact

   https://doi.org/10.5194/cp-17-565-2021  

   Abbott, Peter M.; Plunkett, Gill; Corona, Christophe; Chellman, Nathan J.; McConnell, Joseph R.; Pilcher, John R.; Stoffel, Markus; Sigl, Michael (January 2021, Climate of the Past)

   null (Ed.)

   Abstract. Volcanic eruptions are a key source of climatic variability, andreconstructing their past impact can improve our understanding of theoperation of the climate system and increase the accuracy of future climateprojections. Two annually resolved and independently dated palaeoarchives –tree rings and polar ice cores – can be used in tandem to assess thetiming, strength and climatic impact of volcanic eruptions over the past∼ 2500 years. The quantification of post-volcanic climateresponses, however, has at times been hampered by differences betweensimulated and observed temperature responses that raised questions regardingthe robustness of the chronologies of both archives. While manychronological mismatches have been resolved, the precise timing and climaticimpact of two major sulfate-emitting volcanic eruptions during the 1450s CE, including the largest atmospheric sulfate-loading event in the last 700 years, have not been constrained. Here we explore this issue through acombination of tephrochronological evidence and high-resolution ice-corechemistry measurements from a Greenland ice core, the TUNU2013 record. We identify tephra from the historically dated 1477 CE eruption of theIcelandic Veiðivötn–Bárðarbunga volcanic system in directassociation with a notable sulfate peak in TUNU2013 attributed to thisevent, confirming that this peak can be used as a reliable and precisetime marker. Using seasonal cycles in several chemical elements and 1477 CEas a fixed chronological point shows that ages of 1453 CE and 1458 CE can beattributed, with high precision, to the start of two other notablesulfate peaks. This confirms the accuracy of a recent Greenland ice-corechronology over the middle to late 15th century and corroborates thefindings of recent volcanic reconstructions from Greenland and Antarctica.Overall, this implies that large-scale Northern Hemisphere climatic coolingaffecting tree-ring growth in 1453 CE was caused by a Northern Hemispherevolcanic eruption in 1452 or early 1453 CE, and then a Southern Hemisphereeruption, previously assumed to have triggered the cooling, occurred laterin 1457 or 1458 CE. The direct attribution of the 1477 CE sulfate peak to the eruption ofVeiðivötn, one of the most explosive from Iceland in the last 1200 years, also provides the opportunity to assess the eruption's climaticimpact. A tree-ring-based reconstruction of Northern Hemisphere summertemperatures shows a cooling in the aftermath of the eruption of −0.35 ∘C relative to a 1961–1990 CE reference period and−0.1 ∘C relative to the 30-year period around the event, as well as arelatively weak and spatially incoherent climatic response in comparison tothe less explosive but longer-lasting Icelandic Eldgjá 939 CE and Laki1783 CE eruptions. In addition, the Veiðivötn 1477 CE eruptionoccurred around the inception of the Little Ice Age and could be used as achronostratigraphic marker to constrain the phasing and spatial variabilityof climate changes over this transition if it can be traced in moreregional palaeoclimatic archives. 

   more » « less
5. Population Change in Wildfire-Affected Areas in the United States: Evidence from U.S. Postal Service Residential Address Data

   https://doi.org/10.1007/s11113-024-09904-4  

   DeWaard, Jack; Din, Alexander M; McConnell, Kathryn; Fussell, Elizabeth (August 2024, Population Research and Policy Review)

   We examine the utility of data on active and vacant residential addresses to inform local and timely monitoring and assessments of how areas impacted by wildfires and extreme weather events more broadly lose (or not) and subsequently recover (or not) their populations. Provided by the U.S. Postal Service to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development and other users, these data are an underutilized and potentially valuable tool to study population change in disasteraffected areas for at least three reasons. First, as they are aggregated to the ZIP + 4 level, they permit highly local portraits of residential and, indirectly, of population change. Second, they are tabulated on a quarterly basis starting in 2010 through the most recent quarter, thereby allowing for timely assessments than other data sources. Third, one mechanism of population change—namely, underlying changes in residential occupancies and vacancies—is explicit in the data. Our findings show that these data are sufficient for detecting signals of residential and, indirectly, of population change during and after particularly damaging wildfires; however, there is also noticeable variation across cases that requires further investigations into, for example, the guidance the U.S. Postal Services provides its postal offices and carriers to classify addresses as vacant. 

   more » « less