Caribbean 500 Year Shipwreck Frequency and Tree Growth Suppression Data Trouet, V.; Harley, G.L.; Domínguez-Delmás, M. Trouet, V. Harley, G.L. Domínguez-Delmás, M. Hurricanes and Tropical Cyclones Reconstruction PIEL Pinus elliottii Engelm. slash pine earth science/paleoclimate/historical (age,null,null,year Common Era,null,historical,null,null,N,null) earth science/paleoclimate/tree ring (phenological event,null,null,percent,null,tree ring,null,null,N,raw ring width at least 25% below the 10-y running mean of all growth rings) earth science/paleoclimate/tree ring (number of samples,null,null,count,null,tree ring,null,null,N,null) earth science/paleoclimate/historical (societal event,null,null,count,null,historical,null,null,N,Spanish shipwreck events that occurred in the Caribbean) earth science/paleoclimate/tree ring (age,null,null,year Common Era,null,tree ring,null,null,N,null) earth science/paleoclimate/historical (Caribbean Sea>LATITUDE >LONGITUDE ) (Big Pine Key>LATITUDE 24.714>LONGITUDE -81.385) Assessing the impact of future climate change on North Atlantic tropical cyclone (TC) activity is of crucial societal importance, but the limited quantity and quality of observational records interferes with the skill of future TC projections. In particular, North Atlantic TC response to radiative forcing is poorly understood and creates the dominant source of uncertainty for twenty-first-century projections. Here, we study TC variability in the Caribbean during the Maunder Minimum (MM; 1645-1715 CE), a period defined by the most severe reduction in solar irradiance in documented history (1610–present). For this purpose, we combine a documentary time series of Spanish shipwrecks in the Caribbean (1495-1825 CE) with a tree-growth suppression chronology from the Florida Keys (1707-2009 CE). We find a 75% reduction in decadal-scale Caribbean TC activity during the MM, which suggests modulation of the influence of reduced solar irradiance by the cumulative effect of cool North Atlantic sea surface temperatures, El Niño-like conditions, and a negative phase of the North Atlantic Oscillation. Our results emphasize the need to enhance our understanding of the response of these oceanic and atmospheric circulation patterns to radiative forcing and climate change to improve the skill of future TC projections. STUDY NOTES: Documentary time series of Spanish shipwrecks (1495-1825 CE) in the Caribbean, plus Florida Keys tree growth suppression data (1707-2009 CE), interpreted as tropical cyclone proxies. NCDC-Paleoclimatology https://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/data-access/paleoclimatology-data - Bauer Bruce Investigator : Trouet, V. Investigator : Harley, G.L. Investigator : Domínguez-Delmás, M. 2016-05-02 ONLINE Files online, ASCII https://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/paleo/study/20105 https://www1.ncdc.noaa.gov/pub/data/paleo/historical/caribbean/trouet2016supp.txt https://www1.ncdc.noaa.gov/pub/data/paleo/historical/caribbean/trouet2016ship.txt https://www1.ncdc.noaa.gov/pub/data/paleo/historical/caribbean/trouet2016supp.txt https://www1.ncdc.noaa.gov/pub/data/paleo/historical/caribbean/trouet2016ship.txt English https://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/paleo/study/20105 https://www1.ncdc.noaa.gov/pub/data/paleo/historical/caribbean/trouet2016supp.txt https://www1.ncdc.noaa.gov/pub/data/paleo/historical/caribbean/trouet2016ship.txt Valerie Trouet, Grant L. Harley, Marta Domínguez-Delmás2016Shipwreck rates reveal Caribbean tropical cyclone response to past radiative forcingProceedings of the National Academy of Sciences113123169-317410.1073/pnas.1519566113http://www.pnas.org/content/113/12/3169 START YEAR: 1495 AD * END YEAR: 2010 AD -85 15 -60 25