African Dust Influence on Atlantic Hurricane Activity and the Peculiar Behaviour of Category 5 Hurricanes

TL;DR

This study investigates how African dust impacts Atlantic hurricane categories, revealing a strong decadal influence on Category 5 hurricanes and suggesting future Category 5 formation is linked to decadal dust minima.

Contribution

It provides the first detailed analysis of African dust's specific effects on each hurricane category using wavelet analysis, highlighting decadal and annual modulation patterns.

Findings

Decadal modulation of African dust strongly influences Category 5 hurricanes.

All hurricane categories show annual modulation related to African dust.

Category 5 hurricanes tend to form near decadal dust minima, especially in deep water areas.

Abstract

We study the specific influence of African dust on each one of the categories of Atlantic hurricanes. By applying wavelet analysis, we find a strong decadal modulation of African dust on Category 5 hurricanes and an annual modulation on all other categories of hurricanes. We identify the formation of Category 5 hurricanes occurring mainly around the decadal minimum variation of African dust and in deep water areas of the Atlantic Ocean, where hurricane eyes have the lowest pressure. According to our results, future tropical cyclones will not evolve to Category 5 until the next decadal minimum that is, by the year 2015 +/- 2.