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Large contribution of sea surface warming to recent increase in Atlantic hurricane activity

Nature volume 451, pages 557–560 (2008)Cite this article

Abstract

Atlantic hurricane activity has increased significantly since 1995 (refs 1–4), but the underlying causes of this increase remain uncertain2,5,6,7,8,9,10,11,12,13,14,15. It is widely thought that rising Atlantic sea surface temperatures have had a role in this16,17, but the magnitude of this contribution is not known. Here we quantify this contribution for storms that formed in the tropical North Atlantic, Caribbean Sea and Gulf of Mexico; these regions together account for most of the hurricanes that make landfall in the United States. We show that a statistical model based on two environmental variables—local sea surface temperature and an atmospheric wind field—can replicate a large proportion of the variance in tropical Atlantic hurricane frequency and activity between 1965 and 2005. We then remove the influence of the atmospheric wind field to assess the contribution of sea surface temperature. Our results indicate that the sensitivity of tropical Atlantic hurricane activity to August–September sea surface temperature over the period we consider is such that a 0.5 °C increase in sea surface temperature is associated with a ∼40% increase in hurricane frequency and activity. The results also indicate that local sea surface warming was responsible for ∼40% of the increase in hurricane activity relative to the 1950–2000 average between 1996 and 2005. Our analysis does not identify whether warming induced by greenhouse gases contributed to the increase in hurricane activity, but the ability of climate models to reproduce the observed relationship between hurricanes and sea surface temperature will serve as a useful means of assessing whether they are likely to provide reliable projections of future changes in Atlantic hurricane activity.

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Figure 1: The recent exceptionally high hurricane frequency and activity.
Figure 2: Nature and performance of the statistical model replicating hurricane frequency and activity in the tropical Atlantic between 1965 and 2005.
Figure 3: Sensitivity of tropical Atlantic hurricane activity to increasing August–September SST in the MDR after removing the influence of atmospheric wind.

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Acknowledgements

We thank J. B. Elsner for helpful comments on the manuscript. This work is supported by the TSR (Tropical Storm Risk) venture sponsored by Benfield (an independent reinsurance intermediary), Royal & SunAlliance (an insurance group), and Crawford & Company (a claims management solutions company). We acknowledge NOAA-CIRES, Climate Diagnostics Center, for the NCEP/NCAR Global Reanalysis Project data and NOAA’s Hurricane Research Division for the HURDAT North Atlantic hurricane database.

Author Contributions M.A.S. instigated and directed the research and wrote the manuscript. A.S.L. performed the data analysis and contributed ideas.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Space and Climate Physics, Benfield UCL Hazard Research Centre, University College London, Holmbury St Mary, Dorking, Surrey RH5 6NT, UK,

    Mark A. Saunders & Adam S. Lea

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  1. Mark A. Saunders
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  2. Adam S. Lea
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Correspondence to Mark A. Saunders.

Supplementary information

Supplementary Information

The file contains Supplementary Figure 1 with Legend and Supplementary Discussion. The Supplementary Figure 1 shows the sensitivity of North Atlantic basin hurricane activity and frequency to increasing sea surface temperatures in the tropical North Atlantic after removing the influence of atmosphere wind circulation. (PDF 209 kb)

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Saunders, M., Lea, A. Large contribution of sea surface warming to recent increase in Atlantic hurricane activity. Nature 451, 557–560 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1038/nature06422

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