Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

Dendrotempestology and the Isotopic Record of Tropical Cyclones in Tree Rings of the Southeastern United States

  • Chapter
  • First Online:
Book cover Tree Rings and Natural Hazards

Part of the book series: Advances in Global Change Research ((AGLO,volume 41))

Abstract

Tropical cyclones (TCs) (hurricanes, typhoons, and cyclones) are considered the natural hazard with the greatest potential for loss of life and destruction of property, for several reasons. First, TCs occur with greater frequency than many other destructive natural hazards, such as earthquakes and volcanic eruptions. This frequency, we are learning, depends on trends in ocean sea-surface temperatures (SSTs) (which can be monitored using the Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO) and the Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation (AMO)) combined with other climatic factors, such as the presence/absence of El Niño and the extensiveness of easterly wave activity. Second, TCs disburse large amounts of energy, acting as a siphon and absorbing energy from the oceans and subsequently releasing it back to the atmosphere. Higher SSTs equate to greater amounts of latent heat and greater amounts of energy released during condensation during a tropical cyclone. Third, tropical cyclones are spatially extensive, from the eye wall of cumulonimbus clouds characterized by sustained and very damaging winds that can move in excess of 250 km/h (180 mph) to the spiral bands that can extend out hundreds of kilometers and capable of producing flooding rainfall. Fourth, tropical cyclones affect sub-tropical and extra-tropical locations, such as Southeastern Asia, where infrastructure is poor and there is very limited ability to provide early warnings or to evacuate human populations that often number in the millions.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this chapter

Log in via an institution
Chapter
USD 29.95
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
eBook
USD 169.00
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as EPUB and PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
Softcover Book
USD 219.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Compact, lightweight edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info
Hardcover Book
USD 219.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Durable hardcover edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Purchases are for personal use only

Institutional subscriptions

References

  • Bousquet B, Travaille G, Ismael A, Canioni L, Pierres KML, Brasseur E, Roy S, le Hecho I, Larregieu M, Tellier S, Potin-Gauder M, Boriachon T, Wazen P, Diard A, Belbeze S (2008) Development of a mobile system based on laser-induced breakdown spectroscopy and dedicated to in situ analysis of polluted soils. Spectrochim Acta B: Atomic Spectrosc 63(10):1085–1090

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Bublitz J, Dolle C, Schade W, Hartmann A, Horn R (2001) Laser-induced breakdown spectroscopy for soil diagnostics. Eur J Soil Sci 52:305–312

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Cregg BM, Dougherty PM, Hennessey TC (1988) Growth and wood quality of young loblolly pine trees in relation to stand density and climate factors. Can J For Res 18:851–858

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Cremers DA, Radziemski LJ (2006) Handbook of laser-induced breakdown spectroscopy. Wiley, Hoboken, NJ

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Donnelly JP, Bryant SS, Butler J, Dowling J, Fan L, Hausmann N, Newby P, Shuman B, Stern J, Westover K, Webb T III (2001) 700 yr sedimentary record of intense hurricane landfalls in southern New England. Geol Soc Am Bull 113(6):714–727

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Dougherty PM, Whitehead D, Vose JM (1994) Environmental influences on the phenology of pine. Ecol Bull 43:64–75

    Google Scholar 

  • Doyle TW, Gorham LE (1996) Detecting hurricane impact and recovery from tree rings. In: Dean JS, Meko DM, Swetnam TW (eds) Tree rings, environment, and humanity. Radiocarbon 1996:405–412

    Google Scholar 

  • Dunwiddie PW (1991) Forest history and composition of Halfway Pond Island, Plymouth County, Massachusetts. Rhodora 93:347–360

    Google Scholar 

  • Elsner JB, Kara AB (1999) Hurricanes of the north Atlantic: climate and society. Oxford University Press, New York

    Google Scholar 

  • Emanuel K, Sundararajan R, Williams J (2008) Hurricanes and global warming: results from downscaling IPCC AR4 simulations. Bull Am Meteorol Soc 89(3):347–367

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Fan DD, Liu KB (2008) Perspectives on the linkage between typhoon activity and global warming from recent research advances in paleotempestology. Chinese Sci Bull 53(19):2907–2922

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Foster DR (1988) Disturbance history, community organization and vegetation dynamics of the old-growth Pisgah Forest, south-western New Hampshire, U.S.A. J Ecol 76:105–134

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Frappier AB, Sahagian D, Carpenter SJ, González LA, Frappier BR (2007) Stalagmite stable isotope record of recent tropical cyclone events. Geology 35(2):111–114

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Gedzelman S, Lawrence J, Gamache J, Black M, Hindman E, Black R, Dunion J, Willoughby H, Zhang X (2003) Probing hurricanes with stable isotopes of rain and water vapor. Mon Weather Rev 131:1112–1127

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Gorham LE (1992) A dendroecological study of hurricane impact and recovery along the central Gulf Coast. Thesis, Northeast Louisiana University

    Google Scholar 

  • Grissino-Mayer HD (2001) Evaluating crossdating accuracy: a manual and tutorial for the computer program COFECHA. Tree-Ring Res 57:205–221

    Google Scholar 

  • Henry JD, Swan JMA (1974) Reconstructing forest history from live and dead plant material–an approach to the study of forest succession in southwest New Hampshire. Ecology 55:772–783

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Jarvinen BR, Neumann CJ, Davis MAS (1984) A tropical cyclone data tape for the North Atlantic Basin, 1886–1983: contents, limitations, and uses. NOAA Technical Memo, NWS NHC 22

    Google Scholar 

  • Jiang J, Perrie W (2007) The impacts of climate change on autumn North Atlantic midlatitude cyclones. J Climat 20(7):1174–1187

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Kaski S, Hakkanen H, Korppi-Tommola J (2004) Determination of Cl/C and Br/C ratios in pure organic solids using laser-induced plasma spectroscopy in near vacuum ultraviolet. J Anal Atomic Spectrom 19(4):474–478

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Klotzbach PJ (2006) Trends in global tropical cyclone activity over the past twenty years (1986–2005). Geophys Res Lett 33(10):L10805

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Landsea CW, Anderson C, Charles N, Clark G, Dunion J, Fernandez-Partagas J, Hungerford P, Neumann C, Zimmer M (2004) The Atlantic hurricane database re-analysis project: documentation for the 1851–1910 alterations and additions to the HURDAT database. In: Murnane RJ, Liu KB (eds) Hurricanes and typhoons: past, present and future. Columbia University Press, New York, p 177

    Google Scholar 

  • Lawrence JR (1998) Isotopic spikes from tropical cyclones in surface waters: opportunities in hydrology and paleoclimatology. Chem Geol 144:153–160

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Lawrence JR, Gedzelman SD (1996) Low stable isotope ratios of tropical cyclone rains. Geophys Res Lett 23:527–530

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Lawrence JR, Gedzelman SD, Gamache J, Black M (2002) Stable isotope ratios: hurricane Olivia. J Atmos Chem 41:67–82

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Lee W, Wu J, Lee Y, Sneddon J (2004) Recent applications of laser-induced breakdown spectroscopy: a review of materials approaches. Appl Spectrosc Rev 39(1):27–97

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Liu KB, Fearn ML (1993) Lake-sediment record of Late Holocene hurricane activities from coastal Alabama. Geology 21(9):793–796

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Liu KB, Fearn ML (2000) Reconstruction of prehistoric landfall frequencies of catastrophic hurricanes in northwestern Florida from lake sediment records. Quat Res 54(2):238–245

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Liu KB, Lu HY, Shen CM (2008) A 1200-year proxy record of hurricanes and fires from the Gulf of Mexico coast: testing the hypothesis of hurricane-fire interactions. Quat Res 69(1):29–41

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Loader NJ, Robertson I, Barker AC, Switsur VR, Waterhouse JS (1997) An improved technique for the batch processing of small wholewood samples to cellulose. Chem Geol 136:313–317

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Ludlum DM (1989) Early American hurricanes 1492–1870, 2nd printing. American Meteorological Society, Boston, MA

    Google Scholar 

  • Manabe D, Kawakatsu K (1968) Chronological investigations on the annual ring and typhonic patterns of the Yakushima cedar. Reports of the Kyushu University of Forestry 22:127–165

    Google Scholar 

  • Miller DL (2005) A tree-ring oxygen isotope record of tropical cyclone activity, moisture stress, and long-term climate oscillations for the southeastern U.S. Dissertation, University of Tennessee, Knoxville, TN

    Google Scholar 

  • Miyake Y, Matsubaya O, Nishihara C (1968) An isotopic study on meteoric precipitation. Pap Meteorol Geophys 19:243–266

    Google Scholar 

  • Mock CJ (2004) Tropical cyclone reconstructions from documentary records: examples from South Carolina. In: Murnane RJ, Liu KB (eds) Hurricanes and typhoons: past, present, and future. Columbia University Press, Columbia, p 464

    Google Scholar 

  • Moehring DM, Ralston CW (1967) Diameter growth of loblolly pine related to available soil moisture and rate of soil moisture loss. Soil Sci Soc Am J 31:560–562

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Moskal TM, Hahn DW (2002) On-line sorting of wood treated with chromated copper arsenate using laser-induced breakdown spectroscopy. Appl Spectrosc 56(10):1337–1344

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • National Phenology Network (2009) Pinus palustris. http://www.usanpn.org/?q=Pinus_palustris

  • Neu U (2008) Is recent major hurricane activity normal? Nature 451:E5

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Nicolini E, Jusserand C, Blavoux B, Coudray J, Eberschweiler C, Mairine P (1989) Appauvrissement en isotopes lourds des précipitations liées aux cyclones. Comptes Rendus de l’Académie des Sciences de Paris, Série II, Mécanique, Physique, Chimie, Sciences de l’univers, Sciences de la Terre 309:1255–1260

    Google Scholar 

  • Nott J, Hayne M (2001) High frequency of ‘super-cyclones’ along the Great Barrier Reef over the past 5, 000 years. Nature 413:508–512

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Nyberg J, Björn A, Malmgren AW, Jury MR, Kilbourne KH, Quinn TM (2007) Low Atlantic hurricane activity in the 1970s and 1980s compared to the past 270 years. Nature 447:698–701

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Parker AJ, Parker KC, McCay DH (2001) Disturbance-mediated variation in stand structure between varieties of Pinus clausa (sand pine). Ann Assoc Am Geogr 91(1):28–47

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Pillow MY (1931) Compression wood records hurricane. J For 29:575–578

    Google Scholar 

  • Rodgers JC, Gamble DW, McCay DH, Phipps S (2006) Tropical cyclone signals within tree-ring chronologies from Weeks Bay National Estuary and Research Reserve, Alabama. J Coastal Res 22(6):1320–1329

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Sandrik A, Landsea CW (2003) Chronological listing of tropical cyclones affecting north Florida and coastal Georgia 1565–1899. NOAA Technical Memorandum NWS SR-224

    Google Scholar 

  • Singh JP, Thakur SN (eds) (2007) Laser-induced breakdown spectroscopy. Elsevier, Boston, MA

    Google Scholar 

  • Stokes MA, Smiley TL (1996) An introduction to tree-ring dating. University of Arizona Press, Tucson, AZ

    Google Scholar 

  • Tang K, Feng X (2001) The effect of soil hydrology on the oxygen and hydrogen isotopic compositions of plants’ source water. Earth Planet Sci Lett 185:355–367

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Theriault GA, Bodensteiner S, Lieberman SH (1998) A real-time fiber-optic probe for the in situ delineation of metals in soils. Field Anal Chem Tech 2(2):117–125

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Torrence C, Compo GP (1998) A practical guide to wavelet analysis. B Am Meteorol Soc 79:61–78

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Trenberth KE, Shea DJ (2006) Atlantic hurricanes and natural variability in 2005. Geophys Res Lett 33(12):L12704

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Weritz F, Schaurich D, Wisch G (2008) Detector comparison for sulfur and chlorine detection with laser induced breakdown spectroscopy in the near-infrared-region. Spectrochim Acta B 63(12):1504–1511

    Google Scholar 

  • Wilsch G, Weritz F, Schaurich D, Wiggenhauser H (2005) Determination of chloride content in concrete structures with laser-induced breakdown spectroscopy. Constr Build Mater 19(10):724–730

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Wu L, Wang B (2008) What has changed the proportion of intense hurricanes in the last 30 years? J Climat 21(6):1432–1439

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Yu KF, Zhao JX, Shi Q, Meng QS (2009) Reconstruction of storm/tsunami records over the last 4000 years using transported coral blocks and lagoon sediments in the southern South China Sea. Quat Int 195:128–137

    Article  Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Laboratory of Tree-Ring Science, Department of Geography, The University of Tennessee, Knoxville, TN, 37996, USA

    Henri D. Grissino-Mayer

  2. Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences, The University of Tennessee, Knoxville, TN, 37996, USA

    Dana L. Miller

  3. Los Alamos National Laboratory, Earth Systems Observations, Los Alamos, NM, 87545, USA

    Claudia I. Mora

Authors
  1. Henri D. Grissino-Mayer
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Dana L. Miller
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  3. Claudia I. Mora
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Henri D. Grissino-Mayer .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Inst. Geologie, Labor für Dendrogeomorphologie, Universität Bern, Baltzerstr. 1-3, Bern, 3012, Switzerland

    Markus Stoffel

  2. Inst. Geologie, Labor für Dendrogeomorphologie, Universität Bern, Baltzerstr. 1-3, Bern, 3012, Switzerland

    Michelle Bollschweiler

  3. Dept. Geography, Texas State University, University Drive 601, San Marcos, 78666-4616, Texas, USA

    David R. Butler

  4. Dept. Geography, University of Western Ontario, London, N6A 5C2, Ontario, Canada

    Brian H. Luckman

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

Copyright information

© 2010 Springer Science+Business Media B.V.

About this chapter

Cite this chapter

Grissino-Mayer, H.D., Miller, D.L., Mora, C.I. (2010). Dendrotempestology and the Isotopic Record of Tropical Cyclones in Tree Rings of the Southeastern United States. In: Stoffel, M., Bollschweiler, M., Butler, D., Luckman, B. (eds) Tree Rings and Natural Hazards. Advances in Global Change Research, vol 41. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-90-481-8736-2_28

Download citation

Publish with us

Policies and ethics

Search

Navigation