Document Type
Article
Publication Date
7-2023
Keywords
climate variability; tropical cyclones; extreme events; volcano; climate interactions
Abstract
Written accounts of hurricanes and their impacts in the Caribbean region date back to 1494 CE We report a new compilation of hurricanes in the longest settled regions of the central and eastern Caribbean region (CECR) that is the most complete yet produced and present basic statistics. We assess likely undercounts of hurricanes due to incomplete documentary records in the earliest part of the record by using the most complete reporting from Puerto Rico relative to the remainder of the CECR. We compare our results with other documentary and proxy data from the region and demonstrate using wavelet analysis significant activity related to the El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO) at inter-annual time scales and lower frequency activity from decadal to multi-decadal scales. Our results offer evidence that, along with ENSO, fluctuations in sulfate aerosols are a possible contributor to the hurricane history. The frequency of hurricane landfalls and impacts in the CECR was lower in the 20th century than any time since 1494 CE.
Citation
Chenoweth, M., & Howard, I. (2023). Hurricane Impacts on Land in the Central and Eastern Caribbean Since 1494 CE From Written Records. Earth and Space Science, 10, e2023EA002897. https://doi.org/10.1029/2023EA002897
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License