Threat by marine heatwaves to adaptive large marine ecosystems in an eddy-resolving model
Guo, X., Gao, Y., Zhang, S., Wu, L., Chang, P., Cai, W., … Gao, H. (2022). Threat by marine heatwaves to adaptive large marine ecosystems in an eddy-resolving model. Nature Climate Change, 12, 179-186. doi:10.1038/s41558-021-01266-5
Marine heatwaves (MHWs), episodic periods of abnormally high sea surface temperature, severely affect marine ecosystems. Large marine ecosystems (LMEs) cover similar to 22% of the global ocean but account for 95% of global fisheries catches. Yet how climate change affects MHWs over LMEs remains u... Show moreMarine heatwaves (MHWs), episodic periods of abnormally high sea surface temperature, severely affect marine ecosystems. Large marine ecosystems (LMEs) cover similar to 22% of the global ocean but account for 95% of global fisheries catches. Yet how climate change affects MHWs over LMEs remains unknown because such LMEs are confined to the coast where low-resolution climate models are known to have biases. Here, using a high-resolution Earth system model and applying a 'future threshold' that considers MHWs as anomalous warming above the long-term mean warming of sea surface temperatures, we find that future intensity and annual days of MHWs over the majority of the LMEs remain higher than in the present-day climate. Better resolution of ocean mesoscale eddies enables simulation of more realistic MHWs than low-resolution models. These increases in MHWs under global warming pose a serious threat to LMEs, even if resident organisms could adapt fully to the long-term mean warming. Show less
