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Marine heatwaves in the Mozambique Channel

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Abstract

Marine heatwaves (MHWs) are becoming more frequent and intense around the world leading to long-term impacts on ecosystems and subsequent socioeconomic consequences. To date, MHWs have not been considered in the Mozambique Channel, a highly biodiverse region with sensitive coral reefs. An assessment of MHW metrics here shows that these events tend to be more intense and last longer in the southeastern part of the channel especially during austral summer. Focus is placed on a particularly sensitive region west of southern Madagascar which shows significant positive trends in MHW metrics over the period 1982–2019 (frequency, intensity and duration). In austral summer 2017, this region experienced the longest and most intense MHW recorded in the past 35 years. This event lasted for 48 days and reached a maximum intensity of 3.44 °C above climatology. The warming largely resulted from anomalous net surface heat fluxes driven by weaker winds and increased insolation but was modulated by horizontal advection and the presence of an anticyclonic eddy. The wind and insolation anomalies were associated with a strong positive Subtropical Indian Ocean Dipole (SIOD), an anomalously weak Mozambique Channel Trough and westward extending Mascarene High. Correlation analysis suggests that long-lasting and intense MHW events occurring between January and March in this region may be associated with positive SIOD events. Changes in winds and surface heat fluxes associated with tropical cyclone Dineo appear to have briefly weakened the event in mid-February whereas those associated with ex-tropical cyclone Enawo appear to have contributed to its end in mid-March 2017.

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Acknowledgements

The research leading to these results has received funding from the National Research Foundation (NRF) ACSyS grant 114690, University of Cape Town Science Faculty Fellowship and the South African Environmental Observation Network (SAEON). The authors are grateful to Copernicus Marine Environment Monitoring Service (CMEMS; https://resources.marine.copernicus.eu/?option=com_csw&view=order&record_id=c0635fc4-07d3-4309-9d55-cfd3e6aa788b), ECMWF (https://cds.climate.copernicus.eu/cdsapp#!/dataset/reanalysis-era5-single-levels?tab=form), NOAA's Optimum Interpolation Sea Surface temperature (OISST), NCEP/NCAR Reanalysis 1 (https://psl.noaa.gov/data/gridded/data.ncep.reanalysis.surfaceflux.html), TropFlux data (https://incois.gov.in/tropflux/index.jsp) and GLORYS12V1 product (https://resources.marine.copernicus.eu/?option=com_csw&view=order&record_id=c0635fc4-07d3-4309-9d55-cfd3e6aa788b) for making satellite, ocean model, and atmospheric reanalysis data freely available. The authors wish to express their gratitude to the individuals who achieved the deployment of the RAMA moorings and the providers (https://www.pmel.noaa.gov/tao/drupal/disdel/) without which the in situ mooring analysis would not have been possible for this study. We would also like to thank the two reviewers whose constructive comments greatly improved our manuscript.

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  1. Department of Oceanography, University of Cape Town, Cape Town, South Africa

    D. Mawren, J. Hermes & C. J. C. Reason

  2. South African Environmental Observation Network, Egagasini Node, Cape Town, South Africa

    D. Mawren & J. Hermes

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See Figs. 12, 13.

Fig. 12
figure 12

a Normalized JFM MHW metrics in the SWM box computed from OISSTV2 dataset (Frequency, Mean Intensity (°C), mean MHW cumulative intensity (°Cdays), Duration (days)), and the time series of the Subtropical Indian Ocean Dipole (SIOD) in JFM. Monthly mean cumulative intensity in SWM box computed from OISSTV2 dataset during (b) austral summer (November–April, for e.g. Year 2016 starts in November 2016 and ends in April 2017) and (c) austral winter (May–October). All trends are statistically significant at 95%

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Fig. 13
figure 13

Comparison of daily time series of (a) mixed layer and surface heat storage (Wm−2) computed from RAMA mooring at position 8 °S, 55 °E, OISSTV2 and GLORYSV12 averaged in a 2° × 2° box from the mooring location 8 °S, 55 °E, b downward shortwave radiation extracted from RAMA mooring, TropFlux products, ERA5 and NCEP1 reanalysis and Net surface heat flux (Wm−2) computed from ERA5 and TropFlux, c horizontal mixed layer advection (Wm−2) calculated from GLORYS and OSCAR and d total heat budget (Wm−2) computed from GLORYS and ERA5. GLORYS, OSCAR, OISSTv2, NCEP1 and TropFlux data are all averaged in a 2° × 2° box centred at the mooring location, 8 °S, 55 °E during January 2016–December 2017. Data are averaged over a running mean of 1 month respectively

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Mawren, D., Hermes, J. & Reason, C.J.C. Marine heatwaves in the Mozambique Channel. Clim Dyn 58, 305–327 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00382-021-05909-3

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