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Active Atlantic hurricane era at its end?

Nature Geoscience volume 8, pages 737–738 (2015)Cite this article

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To the Editor —

The Atlantic hurricane seasons in 2013 and 2014 were quieter than average, and there are indications that hurricane activity in 2015 will also be below normal. Here we investigate whether the active Atlantic hurricane era that began in 1995 may have ended. To this end, we assess hurricane variability in the Atlantic since 1878, along with a proxy for the Atlantic multidecadal oscillation (AMO), whose positive phases have been noted to be closely linked to active periods for Atlantic hurricanes. We find that the AMO proxy values are currently at their lowest values since the early 1990s, when Atlantic hurricane activity was well below average.

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Figure 1: Analyses of Atlantic multidecadal variability.

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Acknowledgements

P.K. and W.M.G. acknowledge support from the G. Unger Vetlesen Foundation.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Atmospheric Science, Colorado State University, Fort Collins, 80523, Colorado, USA

    P. Klotzbach & W. Gray

  2. Environment Canada/Canadian Hurricane Centre, B2Y 2N6, Dartmouth, Nova Scotia, Canada

    C. Fogarty

Authors
  1. P. Klotzbach
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  2. W. Gray
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  3. C. Fogarty
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to P. Klotzbach.

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Klotzbach, P., Gray, W. & Fogarty, C. Active Atlantic hurricane era at its end?. Nature Geosci 8, 737–738 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1038/ngeo2529

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