Ancient shipwrecks are a treasure trove of climate data
by Starre Vartan 6 Jan 2018 05:47 UTC
Ancient shipwrecks are a treasure trove of climate data © Wikimedia
Thousands of sailors perished in stormy seas throughout the Caribbean in the 15th, 16th, and 17th centuries. Surely they would never have guessed that their terrifying ends would help scientists in the future. But creative researchers have found a link between historic Spanish shipwrecks, hurricanes, and the climate.
Their initial research, published last year, takes on added urgency after a devastating hurricane season has sparked conversations about the linkages between powerful storms and climate change.
As a story about scientists and shipwrecks should, it all began over pints of grog: In this case, it was beers following a conference of dendrochronologists, scientists who study tree-rings to mine data about the past. Valerie Trouet, a professor at the Laboratory of Tree-Ring Research at the University of Arizona, Grant Harley, now a professor of geography at the University of Idaho, and Marta Domínguez-Delmás, a dendrochronology researcher and archaeologist at the University of Santiago de Compostela in Spain, were sharing their work on Hotel Congress' patio in Tucson, Arizona. As they talked, they realized that each had unique pieces knowledge that together, might answer questions about how climate affects hurricanes.
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