HURRICANE

Lead

The HURRICANE project investigates long-term natural hurricane variability and its causes with the use of stalagmites from caves located in several locations within the Atlantic hurricane basin. In the greater framework of this project are also research questions related to the impact of large tropical storms and droughts in these regions. We work on samples from Belize, Turks and Caicos Islands and Bermuda Island.

Objectives

• The HURRICANE project is aiming at better understanding the natural variability of Atlantic hurricanes in the past, and to compare this with present-day hurricane frequency.
• In order to gain in-depth understanding of the local climate conditions and the surface-cave transfer of the signal and its incorporation into stalagmites, a detailed cave monitoring programme is currently in place.
• A suite of different stalagmite proxies is analysed, such as stable isotopes, trace elements, radiocarbon, organic carbon, and calcite density.

Scientific and social context

Past hurricane activity is still poorly understood, and especially shifts in the dominant storm tracks across the Atlantic need to be studied in order to evaluate possible future trends related to anthropogenic climate change. Using high precision and resolution stalagmite records, these questions can be addressed. Stalagmites have become one of the most promising terrestrial archives, especially because they often can be dated very precisely, for example using U-series. In addition, detailed cave monitoring and focus on the development and study of several novel stalagmite proxies provides valuable new information on cave systems and stalagmites to the paleoclimate and speleothem communities.

Collaborations

This project is mainly lead from Durham University (UK), by Dr. James Baldini. We collaborate with the University of New Mexico, Pennsylvania State University and Cambridge University.

Project member

• Franziska Lechleitner