• \
    Start Submission Become a Reviewer

    Reading: Granger causality and Atlantic hurricanes

    Download

     A- A+
    Alt. Display

    Original Research Papers

    Granger causality and Atlantic hurricanes

    Author:

    James B. Elsner

    Department of Geography, The Florida State University, Tallahassee, FL, 32306, US
    X close

    Abstract

    Atlantic tropical cyclones have been getting stronger recently with a trend that is related to an increase in the late summer/early fall sea-surface temperature over the North Atlantic. Some studies attribute the increasing ocean warmth and hurricane intensity to a natural climate fluctuation, known as the Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation; others suggest that climate change related to anthropogenic greenhouse gases emissions is the cause. Noting that the only difference between these two hypotheses is the causal connection between global mean near-surface air temperature (GT) and Atlantic sea-surface temperature (SST), the author previously showed how to use statistical tests to examine this hypothesis. Here the author expands on this research. In particular, a more comprehensive explanation of the techniques and additional tests and checks against misspecification are provided. The earlier results are confirmed in showing that preceding GT anomalies have a significant statistical relationship to current SST anomalies but not conversely so that if causality exists between Atlantic SST and global temperature, the causal direction likely goes from GT to SST. The result is robust against a small amount of noise added to the data. Identical tests applied to surrogate time series fail to identify causality as expected. The work underscores the importance of using data models to understand relationships between hurricanes and climate.

    How to Cite: Elsner, J.B., 2007. Granger causality and Atlantic hurricanes. Tellus A: Dynamic Meteorology and Oceanography, 59(4), pp.476–485. DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/j.1600-0870.2007.00244.x
      Published on 01 Jan 2007
    Peer Reviewed
     CC BY 4.0
     Accepted on 1 Mar 2007            Submitted on 2 Aug 2006

    References

    1. Barnett , T. R , Pierce , D. W. , AchutaRao , K. M. , Gleckler , P. J. , Santer , and co-authors . 2005 . Penetration of human-induced warming into the world’s oceans. Science 309 , 284 - 287 .  

    2. DeMaria , M. , Knaff , J. A. and Connell , B. H. 2001 . A tropical cyclone genesis parameter for the tropical Atlantic . Wea. Forecasting 16 , 219 – 233 .  

    3. Elsner , J. B. 2006 . Evidence in support of the climate change-Atlantic hurricane hypothesis . Geophys. Res. Lett . 33 , L16705 , doi: https://doi.org/10.1029/2006GL026869 .  

    4. Elsner , J. B. , Kara , A. B. and Owens , M. A. 1999 . Fluctuations in North Atlantic hurricane frequency . J. Climate 12 , 427 – 437 .  

    5. Emanuel , K. A. 2005 . Increasing destructiveness of tropical cyclones over the past 30 years . Nature 436 , 686 – 688 .  

    6. Enfield , D. B. , Mestas-Nuiiez , A. M. and Trimble , P. J. 2001 . The Atlantic multidecadal oscillation and it’s relation to rainfall and river flows in the continental US . Geophys. Res. Lett . 28 , 2077 – 2080 .  

    7. Folland , C. K. and co-authors , 2001. Global temperature change and its uncertainties since 1861. Geophys. Res. Lett . 28 , 2621-262 4 .  

    8. Goldenberg , S. B. , Landsea , C. W. , Mestas-Nuiiez , A. M. and Gray , W. M. 2001 . The recent increase in Atlantic hurricane activity: Causes and implications . Science 293 , 474 – 479 .  

    9. Granger , C. W. J. 1969 . Investigating causal relations by econometric methods and cross-spectral methods . Econometrica 34 , 424 – 438 .  

    10. Hoyos , C. D. , Agudelo , P. A. , Webster , P. J. and Curry , J. A. 2006 . Deconvolution of the factors contributing to the increase in global hurricane intensity . Science 312 , 94 – 97 .  

    11. Kaufmann , R. K. and Stern , D. I. 1997 . Evidence for human influence on climate from hemispheric temperature relations . Nature 388 , 39 – 44 .  

    12. Klotzbach , P. J. 2006 . Trends in global tropical cyclone activity over the past twenty years (1986-2005) . Geophys. Res. Lett . 33 , L10805 , doi: https://doi.org/10.1029/2006GL025881 .  

    13. Kwiatkowski , D. , Phillips , P. C. B. , Schmidt , P. and Shin , Y. 1992 . Testing the null hypothesis of stationarity against the alternative of a unit root . J. Econometr 54 , 159 – 178 .  

    14. Landsea , C. W. 2005 . Hurricanes and global warming . Nature 438 , 11 – 13 , doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/nature04477 .  

    15. Mann , M. E. and Emanuel , K. A. 2006 . Atlantic hurricane trends linked to climate change . EOS 87 , 233 , 238,241 .  

    16. Mosedale , T. J. , Stephenson , D. B. , Collins , M. and Mills , T. C. 2006 . Granger causality of coupled climate processes: ocean feed-back on the North Atlantic Oscillation . J. Climate 19 , 1182 – 1194 .  

    17. Neumann , C. J. , Jarvinen , B. R. , McAdie , C. J. and Hammer , G. R. 1999 . Tropical cyclones of the North Atlantic Ocean , 1871-1998. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration , 206 pp .  

    18. Pielke , R. A. Jr. , Landsea , C. , Mayfield , M. , Laver , J. and Pasch , R. 2005 . Hurricanes and global warming . Bull. Am. MeteoroL Soc . 86 , 1571 – 1575 .  

    19. Rayner , N. A. and co-authors , 2003 . Global analyses of sea surface temperature, sea ice, and night marine air temperature since the late nineteenth century. J. Geophys. Res . 108 ( D14 ), 4407 , doi: https://doi.org/10.1029/2002JD002670 .  

    20. Richards , G. R. 1993 . Change in global temperature: A statistical analysis . J. Climate 6 , 546 – 559 .  

    21. Shapiro , L. J. and Goldenberg , S. B. 1998 . Atlantic sea surface temperatures and tropical cyclone formation . J. Climate 11 , 578 – 590 .  

    22. Theiler , J. , Galdrilcian , B. , Longtin , A. , Eubank , S. and Farmer , J. D. 1992 . Using surrogate data to detect nonlinearity in time series. In: Nonlinear Modelling and Forecasting (eds M . Casdagli and S. Eubank , Santa Fe Institute, Addison Wesley, Boston, 163 - 188 .  

    23. Trenberth , K. 2005 . Uncertainty in hurricanes and global warming . Science 308 , 1753 – 1754 .  

    24. Trenberth , K. and Shea , D. J. 2006 . Atlantic hurricanes and natural variability in 2005 . Geophys. Res. Lett . 33 , L12704 , doi: https://doi.org/10.1029/2006GL026894 .  

    25. Triacca , U. 2001 . On the use of Granger causality to investigate the human influence on climate . Theor AppL Climatol . 69 , 137 – 138 .  

    26. Wang , W. , Anderson , B. T. , Kaufmann , R. K. and Myneni , R. B. 2004 . The relation between the North Atlantic oscillation and SSTs in the North Atlantic basin . J. Climate 17 , 4752 – 4759 .  

    27. Webster , P. J. , Holland , G. J. , Curry , J. A. and Chang , H. R. 2005 . Changes in tropical cyclone number, duration, and intensity in a warming environment . Science 309 , 1844 – 1846 .  

    28. Zivot , E. and Wang , J. 2002 . Modeling Financial Time Series with 5-PLUS . Insightful , Seattle , 653 pp .  

    Jump to Discussions Related content
    comments powered by Disqus