![\"Blue](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/SEI_246430051-0701.jpg\")
\n\t\tResearchers say the Great Blue Hole has revealed a \u2018concerning\u2019 storm trend (Picture: Getty Images)<\/p>\n
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\n\t\tResearchers say the Great Blue Hole has revealed a \u2018concerning\u2019 storm trend (Picture: Getty Images)<\/p>\n
Scientists have uncovered a \u2018concerning\u2019 trend after taking a sample from the Great Blue Hole off the coast of Belize. <\/a><\/p>\n They extracted a sediment core from the bottom of the 410ft (125m) marine sinkhole that has provided a 5,700-year storm archive.<\/p>\n The layers of sediment showed that over the past six millennia, on average, between four and 16 tropical storms pass over the hole per 100 years.<\/p>\n They also revealed that the frequency and intensity of these storms steadily rose, and then increased significantly over the past 20 years.<\/p>\n The researchers attribute the steady rise to natural climactic shifts and the recent uptick to man-made climate change. <\/a><\/p>\n The scientists from Goethe University in Frankfurt removed the 98ft (30m) sediment core from the underwater cave in 2022 after transporting a drilling platform to the Great Blue Hole. <\/p>\n \t\t\t\tGreat Blue Hole facts \t\t\t<\/p>\n \t\t They then examined the core, which is made up of hundreds of layers of coarse particles that have been transported from the nearby atoll reef by storm waves and surges.<\/p>\n The storm deposits have a different grain size, colour and composition from the fair-weather sediments, so researchers can tell them apart.<\/p>\n From this the research team, which also included scientists from Cologne, G\u00f6ttingen, Hamburg, and Bern, worked out there had been 574 storm events over the past 5,700 years. <\/p>\n If the current rate continues, they believe up to 45 tropical storms and hurricanes could hit the Caribbean region by the end of the 21st century, far above the overall average of 16 every 100 years for the past six millennia.\u00a0<\/p>\n The findings were published in journal\u00a0Science Advances<\/a>\u00a0in March.<\/p>\n The research team wrote: \u2018Predictions of tropical cyclone frequencies are hampered by insufficient knowledge of their natural variability in the past.<\/p>\n \u2018A 30m-long sediment core from the Great Blue Hole, a marine sinkhole offshore Belize, provides the longest available, continuous, and annually resolved tropical cyclone frequency record.<\/p>\n \u2018A 21st-century extrapolation suggests an unprecedented increase in tropical cyclone frequency, attributable to the Industrial Age warming.\u2019<\/p>\n Get in touch with our news team by emailing us at webnews@metro.co.uk<\/a>.<\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/p>\n For more stories like this, <\/strong>check our news page<\/strong><\/a>.<\/p>\n Arrow Arrow\n
![\"Great](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/SEI_246429993-ab8a.jpg\")
\n\t\tResearchers removed a sediment core from the marine sinkhole
(Credits: Getty Images)<\/p>\n
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