Elucidating Modern Climate Signals on Great Bahama Bank Using Simulations and Remote Sensing

Recent advances in Earth observation and computational techniques allow for the rigorous examination of climate and sediment dynamics at scale. Leveraging these novel methods, we investigate how the frequency of severe storms and oscillations in Earth’s climate affect Great Bahama Bank (GBB), the largest isolated carbonate platform in the world. High fidelity hydrodynamic simulations suggest that a single hurricane has a negligible effect on the broad-scale sediment distribution of the platform top, which is predominately sculpted by fair-weather conditions. Nevertheless, multi-decadal satellite monitoring intimates that catastrophic hurricanes, when occurring in quick succession, may be responsible for the remobilization of mud months to years after their passage. Too, distant yet severe winter storms, such as bomb cyclones, can resuspend large volumes of sediment, and, in some instances, as much as their tropical counterparts. Lastly, we link interannual and decadal variations in suspended sediment to atmospherically-induced El-Niño events and the weakening of the oceanic Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation, respectively. We then present evidence others have found of the same climate dynamics we observe in the modern in the Holocene sedimentary record, both along GBB’s slopes, and more tenuously, on its top. In doing so, we shed light on how modern analogues can be used to better constrain past climate signals and the inherent limitations of such practices.