Migration of the tropical cyclone zone throughout the Holocene

Abstract

This paper proposes that a combination of short and long term atmospheric oscillations have resulted in latitudinal movement of the tropical cyclone (TC) zone and location of landfall through the Holocene. A GIS-based approach demonstrates that currently intensity changes of the Bermuda High (BH) result in a large latitudinal spread of TC track and landfall location across the western North Atlantic (NA), while a literature-based examination of paleoclimatic evidence supports the view that long-term changes in the pole-equator temperature gradient has resulted in significant latitudinal migration of the general NA atmospheric system throughout the Holocene, with a heightened (reduced) gradient moving the entire system southward (northward). Our model suggests that the location of hurricane landfall since the mid Holocene is controlled by a millennial scale migration of the hurricane zone (paralleling latitudinal movement of the entire system), complicated by the superimposition of a higher frequency variation in track location, (controlled by intensity oscillations). The resulting millennial scale shifts in landfall location of major hurricanes are hindcast, and methods for testing this hypothesis are described. © 2009 Springer-Verlag US.