Categorizing and Naming Marine Heatwaves

Hobday, Alistair J.; Oliver, Eric C. J.; Gupta, Alex Sen; Benthuysen, Jessica A.; Burrows, Michael T.; Donat, Markus G.; Holbrook, Neil J.; Moore, Pippa J.; Thomsen, Mads S.; Wernberg, Thomas; Smale, Dan

doi:10.5670/oceanog.2018.205

Cited by 389 publications

(382 citation statements)

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“…Also, it would presumably require a passage of some time for elevated grazing to deplete prey stocks below critical levels needed by murres. In fact, it was almost a full year from start of the "official" heatwave (August 2014, [10]) and more than 3 years after the rate of warming turned positive in 2012 (Fig 1) before a few murre colonies experienced reproductive failure and elevated murre mortality appeared in the GOA and northern CCS (Figs 3 and 5). Murre mortalities increased and persisted through fall in the GOA and southern CCS, and then peaked in the GOA during December 2015 and January 2016, a full 18 months after initiation of the heatwave.…”

Section: Causal Factorsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Murre mortalities increased and persisted through fall in the GOA and southern CCS, and then peaked in the GOA during December 2015 and January 2016, a full 18 months after initiation of the heatwave. Murre die-offs diminished to background levels by April-June of 2016, as water temperatures returned to normal [10]. In contrast, reproductive failures peaked at 13 colonies during the summer of 2016 (23-24 months from heatwave initiation), continued at 9 colonies in 2017, and declined to only 4 colonies in 2018 (USGS, USFWS unpubl.…”

Section: Causal Factorsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Summary-effects of an ectothermic vise. During the most powerful marine heatwave on record [10], an extreme die-off and chronic breeding failure of common murres in the NE Pacific resulted from a widespread shortage of forage fish across three large marine ecosystems. Major impacts on murres included a large reduction (possibly 10-20%) in the breeding population and a severe reduction in productivity that will dampen recruitment for several years.…”

Section: Causal Factorsmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Extreme mortality and reproductive failure of common murres resulting from the northeast Pacific marine heatwave of 2014-2016

et al. 2020

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About 62,000 dead or dying common murres (Uria aalge), the trophically dominant fish-eating seabird of the North Pacific, washed ashore between summer 2015 and spring 2016 on beaches from California to Alaska. Most birds were severely emaciated and, so far, no evidence for anything other than starvation was found to explain this mass mortality. Threequarters of murres were found in the Gulf of Alaska and the remainder along the West Coast. Studies show that only a fraction of birds that die at sea typically wash ashore, and we estimate that total mortality approached 1 million birds. About two-thirds of murres killed were adults, a substantial blow to breeding populations. Additionally, 22 complete reproductive failures were observed at multiple colonies region-wide during (2015) and after (2016-2017) the mass mortality event. Die-offs and breeding failures occur sporadically in murres, but the magnitude, duration and spatial extent of this die-off, associated with multi-colony and multi-year reproductive failures, is unprecedented and astonishing. These events cooccurred with the most powerful marine heatwave on record that persisted through 2014-2016 and created an enormous volume of ocean water (the "Blob") from California to Alaska with temperatures that exceeded average by 2-3 standard deviations. Other studies PLOS ONE | https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0226087 January 15, 2020 1 / 32 OPEN ACCESS Citation: Piatt JF, Parrish JK, Renner HM, Schoen SK, Jones TT, Arimitsu ML, et al. (2020) Extreme mortality and reproductive failure of common murres resulting from the northeast Pacific marine heatwave of 2014-2016. PLoS ONE 15(1):indicate that this prolonged heatwave reduced phytoplankton biomass and restructured zooplankton communities in favor of lower-calorie species, while it simultaneously increased metabolically driven food demands of ectothermic forage fish. In response, forage fish quality and quantity diminished. Similarly, large ectothermic groundfish were thought to have increased their demand for forage fish, resulting in greater top-predator demands for diminished forage fish resources. We hypothesize that these bottom-up and top-down forces created an "ectothermic vise" on forage species leading to their system-wide scarcity and resulting in mass mortality of murres and many other fish, bird and mammal species in the region during 2014-2017.

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Section: Causal Factorsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Causal Factorsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Causal Factorsmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Extreme mortality and reproductive failure of common murres resulting from the northeast Pacific marine heatwave of 2014-2016

et al. 2020

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“…The NE Pacific 2013/2016 MHW (hereafter the NE Pacific MHW) is one of the most well‐studied MHW events (Bond et al, ; Di Lorenzo & Manuta, ; Gentemann et al, ; Hartmann, ; Hobday et al, ; Jacox et al, ; Myers et al, ; Oliver, Perkins‐Kirkpatrick, et al, ), making it a good case study for understanding the maintenance mechanisms of MHWs. A MHW is defined as a period when SSTs exceed an upper threshold, typically the 90th percentile relative to local climatology, for 5 days or longer (Hobday et al, ).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…A MHW is defined as a period when SSTs exceed an upper threshold, typically the 90th percentile relative to local climatology, for 5 days or longer (Hobday et al, ). This NE Pacific MHW (“the Blob”) is defined as a severe MHW since SST anomalies reached 3 times the 90th percentile differences from the local climatological SSTs (Hobday et al, ). MHWs are increasing in severity and frequency, and this trend will likely continue into the future due to climate change (Oliver, Donat, et al, ); consequently, it is prudent to understand the physical drivers that start and maintain MHWs (Frölicher & Laufkötter, ; Oliver, Benthuysen, et al, ).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Role of Clouds and Surface Heat Fluxes in the Maintenance of the 2013–2016 Northeast Pacific Marine Heatwave

et al. 2019

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Starting in late 2013, the Northeast (NE) Pacific Ocean experienced anomalously warm sea surface temperatures (SSTs) that persisted for over 2 years. This marine heatwave, known as “the Blob,” produced many devastating ecological impacts with socioeconomic implications for coastal communities. The warm waters observed during the NE Pacific 2013/2016 marine heatwave altered the surface energy balance and disrupted ocean–atmosphere interactions in the region. In principle, ocean–atmosphere interactions following the formation of the marine heatwave could have perpetuated warm SSTs through a positive SST‐cloud feedback. The actual situation was more complicated. While reanalysis data show a decrease in boundary layer cloud fraction and an increase in downward shortwave radiative flux at the surface coincident with warm SSTs, this was accompanied by an increase in longwave radiative fluxes at the surface, as well as an increase in sensible and latent heat fluxes out of the ocean mixed layer. The result is a small negative net heat flux anomaly (compared to the anomalies of the individual terms contributing to the net heat flux). This provides new information about the midlatitude ocean–atmosphere system while it was in a perturbed state. More specifically, a mixed layer heat budget reveals that anomalies in both the atmospheric and oceanic processes offset each other such that the anomalously warm SSTs persisted for multiple years. The results show how the atmosphere–ocean system in the NE Pacific is able to maintain itself in an anomalous state for an extended period of time.

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