Tyler Scott Winkler

Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution | WHOI · Department of Geology and Geophysics

The sediment in North Atlantic blue holes preserves paleoclimate records. However, accurate paleoclimate reconstructions require an improved understanding of allogenic versus autogenic processes controlling blue hole sedimentation. Here we provide a detailed case study of the Holocene stratigraphy within Freshwater River Blue Hole, which is current...

the northern Bahamas have experienced more frequent intense-hurricane impacts than almost anywhere else in the Atlantic since 1850 CE. In 2019, category 5 (Saffir-Simpson scale) Hurricane Dorian demonstrated the destructive potential of these natural hazards. Problematically, determining whether high hurricane activity levels remained constant thro...

Islands across the Bahamian Archipelago have been devastated by five major hurricanes from 2010 to 2020 CE, including Category 5 Hurricane Dorian in 2019 that inundated parts of Abaco and Grand Bahama with up to 4 m of surge, killing 84 people and leaving >245 others missing. Up to 1 m relative sea-level rise is estimated for The Bahamas by 2100 CE...

Meridional shifts of the North Atlantic Subtropical High (NASH) western edge create a dipole that drives hydroclimate variability in the southeastern United States and Caribbean region. Southwest displacements suppress rainfall in the southern Caribbean. Northwest displacements drive southeast United States and northern Caribbean drying. Projection...

Despite increased Atlantic hurricane risk, projected trends in hurricane frequency in the warming climate are still highly uncertain, mainly due to short instrumental record that limits our understanding of hurricane activity and its relationship to climate. Here we extend the record to the last millennium using two independent estimates: a reconst...

The year 2020 Common Era (CE) experienced the highest number of named tropical cyclones in the Atlantic Ocean since 1850 CE, but the short instrumental record makes it challenging to assess if this level of activity is statistically meaningful. Here, we present two near‐annually resolved hurricane reconstructions from sediment archived in two blue...

Sinkholes develop on carbonate landscapes when caves collapse and can subsequently become lake-like environments if they are flooded by local groundwater. Sediment cores retrieved from sinkholes have yielded high-resolution reconstructions of past environmental change, hydroclimate, and hurricane activity. However, our understanding of the internal...

Although Atlantic hurricane risk is expected to increase in a warming climate, projecting trends in hurricane frequency over the present century is still highly uncertain. The short instrumental record limits our understanding of hurricane activity and its relationship to climate, especially on multi-decadal and longer time scales. Here we extend t...

The collapse of the Maya civilization in the late 1st/early 2nd millennium CE has been attributed to multiple internal and external causes including overpopulation, increased warfare, and environmental deterioration. Yet the role hurricanes may have played in the fracturing of Maya socio-political networks, site abandonment, and cultural reconfigur...

Abandoned river channels on alluvial floodplains represent areas where sediments, organic matter, and pollutants preferentially accumulate during overbank flooding. Theoretical models describing sedimentation in floodplain lakes recognize the different stages in their evolution, where the threshold for hydrologic connectivity increases in older lak...

Dissolution of carbonate platforms, like The Bahamas, throughout Quaternary sea-level oscillations have created mature karst landscapes that can include sinkholes and off-shore blue holes. These karst features are flooded by saline oceanic waters and meteoric-influenced groundwaters, which creates unique groundwater environments and ecosystems. Lit...

Coastal communities are vulnerable to sea-level rise and hurricane-induced flooding. Our ability to assess flooding risk at coastal locations is restricted by the short observational record and limited knowledge on storm surge generation during hurricanes of different strength, size and orientation. Here, we present a transect of sediment cores col...

Subsurface mixing of seawater and terrestrial-borne meteoric waters on carbonate landscapes creates karst subterranean estuaries, an area of the coastal aquifer with poorly understood carbon cycling, ecosystem functioning, and impact on submarine groundwater discharge. Caves in karst platforms facilitate water and material exchange between the mari...

Subsurface mixing of seawater and terrestrial-borne meteoric waters on carbonate landscapes creates karst subterranean estuaries, an area of the coastal aquifer with poorly understood carbon cycling, ecosystem functioning, and impact on submarine groundwater discharge. Caves in karst platforms facilitate water and material exchange between the mari...

Sedimentary records of past hurricane activity indicate centennial‐scale periods over the past millennium with elevated hurricane activity. The search for the underlying mechanism behind these active hurricane periods is confounded by regional variations in their timing. Here, we present a new high resolution paleohurricane record from The Bahamas...

The Little Bahama Bank was likely the last island group colonized by the Lucayan natives in the tropical North Atlantic, but preserved Lucayan remains are rare from this region. Furthermore, the Lucayan diet included both marine and terrestrial contributions, which must be considered when calibrating conventional radiocarbon results from human rema...

Hurricanes cause substantial loss of life and resources in coastal areas. Unfortunately, historical hurricane records are too short and incomplete to capture hurricane‐climate interactions on multi‐decadal and longer timescales. Coarse‐grained, hurricane‐induced deposits preserved in blue holes in the Caribbean can provide records of past hurricane...

Thick sediments have accumulated in many inland phreatic caves in the Floridian Ocala limestone (USA), but the paleoenvironmental value of these sediments remains unknown. Based on basic principles of sedimentation, one would hypothesize that phreatic cave sediments could document long-term hydrodynamics of the local aquifer. To test this hypothesi...