paleotempestology
Sign in to savePaleotempestology is the study of past tropical cyclone activity by means of geological proxies as well as historical documentary records. The term was coined by American meteorologist Kerry Emanuel.
~33 min read
Encyclopedic overview
26 sectionsContents
- History
- Definition and rationale
- Techniques
- Overwash deposits
- Dating and intensity determination
- Beach ridges
- Isotope ratios
- Other techniques
- Timespans
- Results
- Recurrence rates
- Long term fluctuations
- Role of climate modes
- Influence of long-term temperature variations
- After-effects of tropical cyclones
- Other patterns
- Problems
- Application to non-tropical storms
- Examples
- See also
- Notes
- References
- Citations
- General sources
- Further reading
- External links
Paleotempestology is the study of past tropical cyclone activity by means of geological proxies as well as historical documentary records. The term was coined by American meteorologist Kerry Emanuel.
The usual approach in paleotempestology is the identification of deposits left by storms. Most commonly, these are overwash deposits in waterbodies close to the coast; other means are oxygen isotope ratio variations caused by tropical cyclone rainfall in trees or speleothems (cave deposits), and identifying beach ridges kicked up by storm waves. The occurrence rate of tropical cyclones can then be inferred from these deposits and sometimes also their intensity – typically the stronger events are the most easily recognizable ones –, by comparing them to deposits left by historical events.
Excerpted from Wikipedia’s “paleotempestology” article, available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.