Temporal clustering of tropical cyclones and its ecosystem impacts

Tropical cyclones have massive economic, social, and ecological impacts, and models of their occurrence influence many planning activities from setting insurance premiums to conservation planning. Most impact models allow for geographically varying cyclone rates but assume that individual storm even...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences - PNAS 2011-10, Vol.108 (43), p.17626-17630
Main Authors: Mumby, Peter J, Vitolo, Renato, Stephenson, David B
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Atlantic Ocean
Biological Sciences
Climate change
coasts
Conservation
Coral Reefs
Corals
Cyclones
Cyclonic Storms
Ecosystem
Ecosystem models
Ecosystems
Environmental impact
Geography
Hurricanes
insurance
Marine ecosystems
Models, Theoretical
Physical Sciences
planning
prediction
Predictions
Storms
Tropical regions
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Summary:Tropical cyclones have massive economic, social, and ecological impacts, and models of their occurrence influence many planning activities from setting insurance premiums to conservation planning. Most impact models allow for geographically varying cyclone rates but assume that individual storm events occur randomly with constant rate in time. This study analyzes the statistical properties of Atlantic tropical cyclones and shows that local cyclone counts vary in time, with periods of elevated activity followed by relative quiescence. Such temporal clustering is particularly strong in the Caribbean Sea, along the coasts of Belize, Honduras, Costa Rica, Jamaica, the southwest of Haiti, and in the main hurricane development region in the North Atlantic between Africa and the Caribbean. Failing to recognize this natural nonstationarity in cyclone rates can give inaccurate impact predictions. We demonstrate this by exploring cyclone impacts on coral reefs. For a given cyclone rate, we find that clustered events have a less detrimental impact than independent random events. Predictions using a standard random hurricane model were overly pessimistic, predicting reef degradation more than a decade earlier than that expected under clustered disturbance. The presence of clustering allows coral reefs more time to recover to healthier states, but the impacts of clustering will vary from one ecosystem to another.
ISSN:0027-8424
1091-6490
DOI:10.1073/pnas.1100436108