Tropical cyclones can cause significant damage to people and property in the North Atlantic. However, scientists still don’t fully understand how climate change, caused by humans, affects how often these storms happen. This is partly because we have only been recording tropical cyclones for a short time, and these records have some gaps and biases.

This study looks at how often tropical cyclones occurred in the past 7,500 years in Newfoundland, Canada—a high-latitude location where we know even less about past storms. The researchers did this by studying layers of sediment collected from a pond (Holyrood Pond) in Newfoundland. When a tropical cyclone hits, it can leave behind a layer of coarser grains in the sediment, which scientists can identify and date.

We have found evidence of past hurricanes in the sediment record, including a layer from Hurricane Larry in 2021. By analyzing these layers, we discovered three periods in the past 7,500 years where tropical cyclones happened more often, with fewer storms in the last 1,000 years.

This research helps us better understand long-term hurricane activity in northern regions like Newfoundland. Such information is important for improving risk assessments and planning for future storms in a warming world.