Chr. Science Monitor: Hunting hurricane clues in caves and tree rings

Published: August 17, 2007, 2:45 pm

Tags: science stories, environment stories

Here’s an odd correlation that Peter N. Spotts reports this week in the Christian Science Monitor: Wildfires seem to become more common in areas where a hurricane has recently struck. A possible reason: all those fallen trees. It’s just one nugget in a good, enterprising wrap-up Spotts has on scientists who are trying to determine the ups and downs of hurricane activity in the centuries and millennia before people started keeping detailed records. Some are checking stalagmites (rain water chemistry shifts a bit while a hurricane goes through), tree rings, sediments, and so on. There is a name for this field, one learns: paleotempestology. The results could help scientists sort out the impacts of global warming on hurricane frequency and strength. Other Monitor climate change stories this week: Bettina Gartner - How better-fed cows could cool the planet; Robert C. Cowen - In global warming, all research is local; Whole CSM Sci-tech lineup here;

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