Publication Date:
2022-05-25
Description:
Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution September 2011
Description:
Hurricane activity in the Northeastern Gulf of Mexico and its relationship to
regional and large-scale climate variability during the Late Holocene is explored. A
4500-year record of hurricane-induced storm surges is developed from sediment cores
collected from a coastal sinkhole near Apalachee Bay, Florida. Reconstructed
hurricane frequency is shown to exhibit statistically significant variability with the
greatest activity occurring between 2700 and 2400 years ago and the least activity
between 1900 to 1600 years ago and after 600 years ago. Proxy records of stormrelevant
climate variables contain similar timescales of variability and suggest both
regional and large-scale mechanisms have influenced hurricane activity on centennial
to millennial timescales. In particular, low-frequency migrations of the Loop Current
may exercise control over regional hurricane activity by changing the thermal
structure of the upper ocean and influencing the role of storm-induced upwelling on
hurricane intensification. A new method for estimating the frequency of hurricanegenerated
storm surges is presented and applied to Apalachee Bay, Florida. Multisite
paleohurricane reconstructions from this region are developed, and the effects of
geographic boundary conditions and temporal resolution on estimates of
paleohurricane frequency are explored.
Description:
Financial support provided by the American
Meteorological Society, the National Science Foundation, the Bermuda Risk
Prediction Initiative, the National Center for Airborne Laser Mapping, and the
Coastal Ocean Institute.
Keywords:
Paleoclimatology
;
Holocene
;
Ocean currents
Repository Name:
Woods Hole Open Access Server
Type:
Thesis
Format:
application/pdf
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