A 1,000‐year, annually‐resolved record of hurricane activity from Boston, Massachusetts

Abstract

[1] The annually-laminated (i.e., varved) sediment record from the Lower Mystic Lake (near Boston, MA), contains a series of anomalous graded beds deposited by strong flooding events that have affected the basin over the last millennium. From the historic portion of the record, 10 out of 11 of the most prominent graded beds correspond with years in which category 2 -3 hurricanes are known to have struck the Boston area. Thus, we conclude that the graded beds represent deposition related to intense hurricane precipitation combined with wind-driven vegetation disturbance that exposes fresh, loose sediment. The hurricane signal shows strong, centennial-scale variations in frequency with a period of increased activity between the 12th -16th centuries, and decreased activity during the 11th and 17th -19th centuries. These frequency changes are consistent with other paleoclimate indicators from the tropical North Atlantic, in particular, sea surface temperature variations. Citation: Besonen, M. R., R. S.Bradley, M. Mudelsee, M. B. Abbott, and P. Francus (2008), A 1,000-year, annually-resolved record of hurricane activity from

Climatic controls on hurricane patterns: a 1200-y near-annual record from Lighthouse Reef, Belize

“…Figure 4 compares the Blue Hole proxy record to other records of comparable temporal resolution23242526, and demonstrates that active periods for TCs for the western Caribbean are consistent not only across the greater Caribbean/Gulf of Mexico region, but also across much of the Atlantic Basin supporting the idea that centennial-scale paleo-TC activity has indeed varied at the basin scale9. Timing of shifts in hurricane activity levels recorded in Blue Hole sediments appear to be contemporaneous with variations observed in other paleo-storm archives, and also with documented centennial-scale shifts in climatic conditions (including the mean NAO index and MDR SSTs) known to affect the development and intensity of TCs (Fig.…”

Climatic history of the northeastern United States during the past 3000 years

“…Short-lived disturbances, such as storms, can have dramatic impacts on ecosystems in the NE US (Besonen et al, 2008;Donnelly et al, 2001) but are considered less often in paleoclimate studies because they are very difficult to reconstruct. Erosion patterns inferred from particle size variations in six northern New England lakes suggest an increase in extreme precipitation events during recent millennia, for example in Parris et al (2010), but Noren et al (2002 tell a slightly different story with the same approach for New Hampshire.…”

PALEOCLIMATE RECONSTRUCTION | Paleotempestology

“…A rather unusual proxy record was obtained from a currently nontidal meromictic (chemically stratified) lake near Boston, Massachusetts (Besonen et al, 2008). Annually laminated, or varved, sediments deposited in Lower Mystic Lake are interrupted by up to 36 anomalous graded beds that have been interpreted to be deposited by strong hurricane-related flooding events in the lake basin during the past millennium.…”