Impacts of marine heatwaves on tropical western and central Pacific Island nations and their communities

Holbrook, Neil J.; Hernaman, Vanessa; Koshiba, Shirley; Lako, Jimaima V.; Kajtar, Jules B.; Amosa, Patila; Singh, Awnesh

doi:10.1016/j.gloplacha.2021.103680

Cited by 31 publications

(22 citation statements)

References 69 publications

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“…While both methods detect in general the same features, their MHW characteristic differ due the underlying data. (Holbrook et al, 2022), which aligns with our comparison (see Supplementary Figure S1-S3). A further study using a CMIP6 ensemble showed a very similar pattern of projected change of annual MHW days and intensity around New Zealand (Qiu et al, 2021), providing confidence that our results are quantitatively similar despite being based on 5-daily averaged SSTs.…”

Section: Discussion and Summarysupporting

confidence: 91%

Projections of Future Marine Heatwaves for the Oceans Around New Zealand Using New Zealand's Earth System Model

et al. 2022

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This paper investigates marine heatwave (MHW) characteristics in New Zealand's Earth System Model (NZESM) simulations for present-day conditions and how they are projected to change in the future in relation to anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions. Three emission scenarios following the state of the art shared-socioeconomic pathways (SSPs, SSP1 2.6, SSP2 4.5, and SSP3 7.0) are each evaluated with a set of three ensemble members. These analyses are focused on the ocean around New Zealand, where NZESM captures boundary currents and mesoscale eddies, due to its high-resolution nested ocean grid. For present-day conditions, the model overestimates MHW intensity and underestimates the number of annual MHW days for subtropical waters, while some smaller positive biases are present in subantarctic waters compared to observations. Despite this, NZESM agrees with the observational pattern that more intense MHWs and more annual MHW days are found in subtropical waters compared to subantarctic waters. NZESM projects that MHW intensity will increase more strongly in subtropical waters compared to subantarctic waters, while the largest changes in annual MHW days are projected south of Australia and the Tasman Sea in the Subtropical Front (STF) frontal region, which suggests a southward shift of the STF under increased greenhouse gas emissions. Results using a high-emission scenario (SSP3 7.0) show an increase between 80 and 100% of median MHW intensities by the end of the century relative to the present-day for all analyzed coastal regions, and MHW conditions could become permanent year-round by the end of the century.

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Section: Discussion and Summarysupporting

confidence: 91%

Projections of Future Marine Heatwaves for the Oceans Around New Zealand Using New Zealand's Earth System Model

et al. 2022

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“…Numerous recent studies have focused on the devastating effects of discrete and prolonged extreme oceanic warm water events, also known as ‘marine heatwaves’ (MHWs). Such events cause devastating impacts to marine biodiversity (e.g., Pearce & Feng, 2013; Smale et al., 2019) and the economies of regional fisheries (e.g., Caputi et al., 2016; Holbrook et al., 2021; Smith et al., 2021). At the other extreme, marine cold‐spells (MCSs) —discrete and prolonged extreme oceanic cool water events—also cause critical negative impacts, such as coral mortality (Lirman et al., 2011) and shifts in marine ecosystem structure (Donders et al., 2011).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Understanding the Changing Nature of Marine Cold‐Spells

Wang

Kajtar

Alexander

et al. 2022

Geophysical Research Letters

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Marine cold‐spell (MCS) metrics—such as frequency and intensity—are decreasing globally, while marine heatwave (MHW) metrics are increasing due to sea surface temperature (SST) warming. However, the concomitant changes in MHW and MCS metrics, and whether SST warming can similarly explain the decreasing MCS metrics remain unclear. Here, we provide a comparative global assessment of these changes based on satellite SST observations over 1982–2020. Across the globe, we find distinct differences in mean MHW and MCS metrics. Furthermore, decreasing trends in MCS metrics are not necessarily aligned with increasing trends in MHW metrics. While differences in intensity trends are mainly explained by SST variance trends, differences in trends of annual days are less clear. Overall, decreasing MCS days and intensities are found to be largely driven by warming SST, rather than SST variance changes. Therefore, it is expected that MCS days and intensity will continue diminishing under global warming.

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“…Panel (a) is adapted from Fig. 4a of [4] , and the remaining panels show results in each of the models that contributed to the CMIP6 model mean shown in Fig. 8a of [4] .…”

Section: Data Descriptionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Model and observational data were processed further to simplify the figure generation for [4] . The data were interpolated to the observational grid (i.e., at regular 0.25° resolution), and averaged over four 20-year periods: 1982–2001, 2000–2019, 2020–2039, 2040–2059.…”

Section: Data Descriptionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Tropical western and central Pacific marine heatwave data calculated from gridded sea surface temperature observations and CMIP6

et al. 2022

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Processed marine heatwave metrics are provided for the tropical western and central Pacific Ocean region (120°E-140°W, 40°S-15°N). The metrics are computed from daily sea surface temperature (SST) data, from both observations and models. The observed marine heatwave data are calculated from NOAA 0.25° daily Optimum Interpolation Sea Surface Temperature (OISST) over the period 1982–2019. The modelled marine heatwave data are from analysis of 18 model simulations as part of the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project, Phase 6 (CMIP6) over the period 1982–2100, where two future scenarios have been analysed. The marine heatwave data are provided on a grid point basis across the domain. Marine heatwave timeseries metrics are also provided for three case study regions: Fiji, Samoa, and Palau.

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Impacts of marine heatwaves on tropical western and central Pacific Island nations and their communities

Cited by 31 publications

References 69 publications

Projections of Future Marine Heatwaves for the Oceans Around New Zealand Using New Zealand's Earth System Model

Projections of Future Marine Heatwaves for the Oceans Around New Zealand Using New Zealand's Earth System Model

Understanding the Changing Nature of Marine Cold‐Spells

Tropical western and central Pacific marine heatwave data calculated from gridded sea surface temperature observations and CMIP6

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