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Reconstruction of Prehistoric Landfall Frequencies of Catastrophic Hurricanes in Northwestern Florida from Lake Sediment Records

Published online by Cambridge University Press: 20 January 2017

Kam-biu Liu
Affiliation:
Department of Geography and Anthropology, Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge, Louisiana, 70803
Miriam L. Fearn
Affiliation:
Department of Earth Sciences, University of South Alabama, Mobile, Alabama, 36688

Abstract

Sediment cores from Western Lake provide a 7000-yr record of coastal environmental changes and catastrophic hurricane landfalls along the Gulf Coast of the Florida Panhandle. Using Hurricane Opal as a modern analog, we infer that overwash sand layers occurring near the center of the lake were caused by catastrophic hurricanes of category 4 or 5 intensity. Few catastrophic hurricanes struck the Western Lake area during two quiescent periods 3400–5000 and 0–100014C yr B.P. The landfall probabilities increased dramatically to ca. 0.5% per yr during an “hyperactive” period from 1000–340014C yr B.P., especially in the first millennium A.D. The millennial-scale variability in catastrophic hurricane landfalls along the Gulf Coast is probably controlled by shifts in the position of the jet stream and the Bermuda High.

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Type
Research Article
Copyright
University of Washington

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