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By contrast, natural climate patterns continue to dominate the Pacific.<\/p>\n
The findings have direct consequences for how scientists think about hurricanes and for anyone planning infrastructure along the Atlantic coast.<\/p>\n
Michael Diamond, an assistant professor of meteorology at Florida State University (FSU<\/a>), and meteorology graduate Anthony Freveletti led the study. <\/p>\n They worked with Robert Wills, an assistant professor at the ETH Z\u00fcrich Institute for Atmospheric and Climate Science<\/a>.<\/p>\n The team applied a new statistical method to climate model datasets spanning 1920 through 2025 to disentangle the overlapping signals driving ocean temperature changes in both basins.<\/p>\n A new look at ocean warming <\/p>\n The Pacific has well-known patterns of natural variability. El Ni\u00f1o<\/a> and La Ni\u00f1a \u2013 opposing tropical climate cycles that swing every two to seven years \u2013 are familiar to most people.<\/p>\n Less well known is the Pacific Decadal Oscillation, a climate pattern that unfolds over decades and shapes long-term shifts in ocean temperatures.<\/p>\n The new research confirms that these Pacific oscillations are genuinely natural \u2013 the result of internal ocean dynamics rather than anything humans are doing.<\/p>\n The Atlantic was assumed to work the same way. Scientists thought its long-term temperature shifts were driven by the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC<\/a>). <\/p>\n This vast ocean conveyor moves warm water northward and cold water southward, helping redistribute heat around the planet.<\/p>\n \u201cOur findings contradict this theory,\u201d said Freveletti. \u201cWe found that long-term changes in the Atlantic are more directly related to anthropogenic \u2013 human-produced \u2013 causes such as greenhouse gases and aerosols.\u201d<\/p>\n Two human forces collide<\/p>\n What looked like natural variability in the Atlantic turned out to be two human-driven forces pulling in opposite directions.<\/p>\n Industrial air pollution releases aerosols<\/a> that reflect sunlight and cool the ocean surface, while greenhouse gas emissions trap heat and warm it. <\/p>\n As those influences changed over decades, they created temperature patterns that researchers had often interpreted as natural ocean cycles.<\/p>\n \u201cWe know that important sources of natural variability in Earth\u2019s climate system exist,\u201d said Diamond. <\/p>\n \u201cOur ability to distinguish between these natural and human-forced sources of temperature variability is key to projecting future temperatures and their related impacts on society.\u201d<\/p>\n Separating human and natural changes<\/p>\n To untangle those overlapping signals, the researchers used a statistical approach called rotated low-frequency component analysis (RLFCA), applying it to climate model data with Python. <\/p>\n The method identifies patterns based on how quickly temperatures change over time.<\/p>\n \u201cSince human emissions build up in the atmosphere<\/a> over many years, the temperature changes they cause develop gradually over time,\u201d said Freveletti.<\/p>\n Natural climate fluctuations, by contrast, tend to develop much faster. <\/p>\n By separating slow-evolving patterns from fast-changing ones, the team was able to distinguish long-term human influences from shorter-term natural variability.<\/p>\n What this means for hurricanes<\/p>\n The practical implications of getting this wrong extend well beyond climate research. <\/p>\n Atlantic Ocean temperatures play an important role in hurricane activity. The study suggests that the combined effects of human emissions have driven the sharp increase in hurricanes since 1990. <\/p>\n The findings also challenge the idea that a natural cycle would eventually reverse the trend.<\/p>\n The analysis also suggests that a combination of air pollution and greenhouse gas emissions produced the Atlantic temperature patterns linked to a spike in hurricane activity<\/a> beginning around 1990.<\/p>\n Preparing for a warmer Atlantic<\/p>\n That finding changes how scientists think about the future. If Atlantic Ocean warming were mainly controlled by natural cycles, quieter hurricane periods could eventually return on their own. <\/p>\n But if human emissions<\/a> are driving the trend, future conditions will depend largely on the choices people make.<\/p>\n \u201cWe should not expect to return to an inactive hurricane era by chance alone; the future of human emissions will be the most important driver of Atlantic temperatures going forward,\u201d Diamond said.<\/p>\n The researchers say these findings could also help guide long-term planning along the Atlantic coast. <\/p>\n Preparing for a temporary natural cycle is very different from planning for a human-driven trend that will continue unless emissions decline.<\/p>\n The study is published in the journal Geophysical Research Letters<\/a>.<\/p>\n Image Credit: NASA\/NOAA GOES Project<\/p>\n \u2014-<\/p>\n Like what you read? Subscribe to our newsletter<\/a> for engaging articles, exclusive content, and the latest updates.<\/p>\n Check us out on EarthSnap<\/a>, a free app brought to you by Eric Ralls<\/a> and Earth.com<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u2014\u2014<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Long-term temperature swings in the Atlantic Ocean have long been attributed to natural ocean circulation. New research suggests…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":485885,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[273,111,139,69,147],"class_list":["post-485884","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-environment","tag-environment","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-science"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/485884","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=485884"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/485884\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/485885"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=485884"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=485884"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=485884"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}