A record of almost every hurricane to hit southern Georgia is held inside trees such as longleaf pines (pictured), researchers say.
Observed closely and carefully, the longleaf pine trees in southern Georgia give you the record of just about every hurricane that roared across the region during the past 220 years. A chemical signature on the trees preserves all that!
Unlike the current instrumental record — reliable for only about 60 years, which is too short to determine, for example, whether the observed increase in hurricane activity since the mid-1990s is part of a natural cycle or due to human activity — the new technique, based on analysis of the oxygen isotope content in tree rings, will contribute to our understanding of what controls [hurricane] frequency, Claudia Mora informed.
