July 1975
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47 Citations
Nature
TROPICAL cyclones (including hurricanes) are significant climatic features which affect the South and East USA as well as areas of the western Atlantic, the Caribbean, and the Gulf of Mexico. Since they are considered to be a mechanism which limits the build-up of heat and energy in tropical regions1, cyclones are necessarily related to large scale circulation patterns which may be global in extent. Thus, if a relationship is to be found between solar activity and large scale meteorological phenomena, we may expect that it will evidence itself in analyses of data on cyclone occurrence and the length of the cyclone season. Here we report results of such a study, and provide evidence which is consistent with the hypothesis that a relationship exists between the solar cycle and the occurrence of Atlantic tropical cyclones.