Article on how the Atlantic Niño increases hurricane activity in the Eastern and Central Atlantic published in Nature Communications

This study found that Atlantic Niño enhances the Atlantic inter-tropical convergence zone rainband, which in turn increases African easterly wave activity and low-level cyclonic vorticity in the deep tropical eastern North Atlantic. These conditions increase the likelihood of major hurricanes developing in the deep tropics near the Cape Verde islands, elevating the risk of major hurricanes impacting the Caribbean islands and the United States.

The study can be found at https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-023-39467-5. For more information, contact aoml.communications@noaa.gov. This work was carried out under the auspices of the Cooperative Institute for Marine and Atmospheric Studies (CIMAS), a cooperative institute of the University of Miami, and NOAA, cooperative agreement NA20OAR4320472, and supported by NOAA’s Climate Program Office, Climate Variability and Predictability Program, and NOAA’s Atlantic Oceanographic and Meteorological Laboratory.