Abstract
Marine heatwaves (MHWs), periods of anomalously warm sea surface temperature (SST) which can have significant impacts on marine ecosystems, have increased in frequency and severity over recent decades. Many coastal systems (e.g., coral reefs) are particularly vulnerable to warm-season heat stress when temperature can exceed organisms’ thermal thresholds and lead to mass mortality. While many studies have examined the change of the warm-season heat stress occurrence over time, e.g., for coral reefs, there has been less analysis of the thermal properties of heat stress events. Here we examine the trend in the characteristics of warm-season heat stress (referred to as warm-season MHWs) at the global-scale from 1985 to 2019, using multiple metrics for each of duration, peak intensity, accumulated heat stress and heating rates. The results show that warm-season MHWs have become more frequent, longer-lasting, featured higher peak intensity and accumulated heat stress across most of the ocean over the past 4 decades. Furthermore, decomposition of the trends in warm-season MHW properties shows that the increased accumulated heat stress was predominantly driven by the increased duration rather than the increased intensity. The results contribute to improving the understanding of warm-season MHWs, which may help inform the prediction of their impacts on marine ecosystems as well as marine conservation and management under climate change.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Similar content being viewed by others
Availability of data and material
The NOAA Coral Reef Watch CoralTemp Version 3.1 Daily Global 5 km SST dataset used in this study is publicly available at https://coralreefwatch.noaa.gov/product/5km/index_5km_sst.php.
Code availability
The codes that compute the warm-season marine heatwave metrics and their trends and produce the figures in the paper are available from the corresponding author upon request.
References
Ainsworth TD, Heron SF, Ortiz JC et al (2016) Climate change disables coral bleaching protection on the Great Barrier Reef. Science 352:338–342. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.aac7125
Amaya DJ, Miller AJ, Xie S-P, Kosaka Y (2020) Physical drivers of the summer 2019 North Pacific marine heatwave. Nat Commun 11:1903. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-020-15820-w
Arias-Ortiz A, Serrano O, Masqué P et al (2018) A marine heatwave drives massive losses from the world’s largest seagrass carbon stocks. Nat Clim Chang 8:338–344. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41558-018-0096-y
Cannon SE, Aram E, Beiateuea T et al (2021) Coral reefs in the Gilbert Islands of Kiribati: resistance, resilience, and recovery after more than a decade of multiple stressors. PLoS ONE 16:e0255304. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0255304
Cheung WWL, Frölicher TL (2020) Marine heatwaves exacerbate climate change impacts for fisheries in the northeast Pacific. Sci Rep 10:6678. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-020-63650-z
Clement AC, Seager R, Murtugudde R (2005) Why are there tropical warm pools? J Clim 18:5294–5311
Collins M, Sutherland M (2019) Extremes, abrupt changes and managing risks. In: IPCC Special Report on the Ocean and Cryosphere in a Changing Climate
Donner SD (2011) An evaluation of the effect of recent temperature variability on the prediction of coral bleaching events. Ecol Appl 21:1718–1730. https://doi.org/10.1890/10-0107.1
Eakin CM, Morgan JA, Heron SF et al (2010) Caribbean corals in crisis: record thermal stress, bleaching, and mortality in 2005. PLoS ONE 5:e13969. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0013969
Eakin CM, Sweatman HPA, Brainard RE (2019) The 2014–2017 global-scale coral bleaching event: insights and impacts. Coral Reefs 38:539–545. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00338-019-01844-2
Frölicher TL, Fischer EM, Gruber N (2018) Marine heatwaves under global warming. Nature 560:360–364. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-018-0383-9
Heede UK, Fedorov AV, Burls NJ (2020) Time scales and mechanisms for the tropical pacific response to global warming: a tug of war between the ocean thermostat and weaker walker. J Clim 33:6101–6118. https://doi.org/10.1175/JCLI-D-19-0690.1
Hilker M, Schwachtje J, Baier M et al (2016) Priming and memory of stress responses in organisms lacking a nervous system. Biol Rev 91:1118–1133. https://doi.org/10.1111/brv.12215
Hobday AJ, Alexander LV, Perkins SE et al (2016) A hierarchical approach to defining marine heatwaves. Prog Oceanogr 141:227–238. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pocean.2015.12.014
Holbrook NJ, Scannell HA, Sen Gupta A et al (2019) A global assessment of marine heatwaves and their drivers. Nat Commun 10:2624. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-019-10206-z
Hu L (2021) A global assessment of coastal marine heatwaves and their relation with coastal urban thermal changes. Geophys Res Lett 48:e2021GL093260. https://doi.org/10.1029/2021GL093260
Hughes TP, Anderson KD, Connolly SR et al (2018a) Spatial and temporal patterns of mass bleaching of corals in the Anthropocene. Science 359:80–83. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.aan8048
Hughes TP, Kerry JT, Baird AH et al (2018b) Global warming transforms coral reef assemblages. Nature 556:492–496. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-018-0041-2
Jones T, Parrish JK, Peterson WT et al (2018) Massive mortality of a Planktivorous seabird in response to a marine heatwave. Geophys Res Lett 45:3193–3202. https://doi.org/10.1002/2017GL076164
Kleypas JA, Danabasoglu G, Lough JM (2008) Potential role of the ocean thermostat in determining regional differences in coral reef bleaching events. Geophys Res Lett 35:1–6. https://doi.org/10.1029/2007GL032257
Li G, Xie S-P, Du Y, Luo Y (2016) Effects of excessive equatorial cold tongue bias on the projections of tropical Pacific climate change. Part I: the warming pattern in CMIP5 multi-model ensemble. Clim Dyn 47:3817–3831. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00382-016-3043-5
Liu G, Heron SF, Mark Eakin C et al (2014) Reef-scale thermal stress monitoring of coral ecosystems: New 5-km global products from NOAA coral reef watch. Remote Sens 6:11579–11606. https://doi.org/10.3390/rs61111579
Luo Y, Lu J, Liu F, Garuba O (2017) The role of ocean dynamical thermostat in delaying the El Niño-like response over the equatorial Pacific to climate warming. J Clim 30:2811–2827. https://doi.org/10.1175/JCLI-D-16-0454.1
Marbà N, Jordà G, Agustí S et al (2015) Footprints of climate change on Mediterranean Sea biota. Front Mar Sci 2:56. https://doi.org/10.3389/fmars.2015.00056
Martell HA, Zimmerman RC (2021) Heating rate modulates the metabolic response of the staghorn coral Acropora cervicornis (Lamarck, 1816). Mar Biol 168:83. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00227-021-03847-6
McClanahan TR, Maina J (2003) Response of coral assemblages to the interaction between natural temperature variation and rare warm-water events. Ecosystems 6:551–563. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10021-002-0104-x
McClanahan TR, Darling ES, Maina JM et al (2019) Temperature patterns and mechanisms influencing coral bleaching during the 2016 El Niño. Nat Clim Chang. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41558-019-0576-8
McLachlan RH, Price JT, Solomon SL, Grottoli AG (2020) Thirty years of coral heat-stress experiments: a review of methods. Coral Reefs 39:885–902. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00338-020-01931-9
Morley JW, Batt RD, Pinsky ML (2017) Marine assemblages respond rapidly to winter climate variability. Glob Chang Biol 23:2590–2601. https://doi.org/10.1111/gcb.13578
Oliver ECJ (2019) Mean warming not variability drives marine heatwave trends. Clim Dyn 53:1653–1659. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00382-019-04707-2
Oliver ECJ, Benthuysen JA, Bindoff NL et al (2017) The unprecedented 2015/16 Tasman Sea marine heatwave. Nat Commun 8:16101. https://doi.org/10.1038/ncomms16101
Oliver ECJ, Donat MG, Burrows MT et al (2018) Longer and more frequent marine heatwaves over the past century. Nat Commun. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-018-03732-9
Peterson WT, Fisher JL, Strub PT et al (2017) The pelagic ecosystem in the Northern California Current off Oregon during the 2014–2016 warm anomalies within the context of the past 20 years. J Geophys Res Ocean 122:7267–7290. https://doi.org/10.1002/2017JC012952
Rhein M, Rintoul SR, Aoki S, Campos E, Chambers D, Feely RA, Gulev S, Johnson GC, Josey SA, Kostianoy A, Mauritzen C, Roemmich D, Talley LD, Wang F (2013) Observations: ocean. In: Stocker TF, Qin D, Plattner G-K, Tignor M, Allen SK, Boschung J, Nauels A, Xia Y, Bex V, Midgley PM (eds) Climate change 2013: the physical science basis. Contribution of Working Group I to the Fifth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, pp 255–316. https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9781107415324.010
Rogers-Bennett L, Catton CA (2019) Marine heat wave and multiple stressors tip bull kelp forest to sea urchin barrens. Sci Rep 9:15050. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-019-51114-y
Sen Gupta A, Thomsen M, Benthuysen JA et al (2020) Drivers and impacts of the most extreme marine heatwaves events. Sci Rep 10:19359. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-020-75445-3
Sippo JZ, Lovelock CE, Santos IR et al (2018) Mangrove mortality in a changing climate: an overview. Estuar Coast Shelf Sci 215:241–249. https://doi.org/10.1016/J.ECSS.2018.10.011
Skirving WJ, Heron SF, Marsh BL et al (2019) The relentless march of mass coral bleaching: a global perspective of changing heat stress. Coral Reefs 38:547–557. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00338-019-01799-4
Skirving W, Marsh B, De La Cour J et al (2020) Coraltemp and the coral reef watch coral bleaching heat stress product suite version 3.1. Remote Sens 12:1–10. https://doi.org/10.3390/rs12233856
Smale DA, Wernberg T (2013) Extreme climatic event drives range contraction of a habitat-forming species. Proc R Soc B 280:20122829–20122829. https://doi.org/10.1098/rspb.2012.2829
Smale DA, Wernberg T, Oliver ECJ et al (2019) Marine heatwaves threaten global biodiversity and the provision of ecosystem services. Nat Clim Chang 9:306–312. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41558-019-0412-1
Sorte CJB, Fuller A, Bracken MES (2010) Impacts of a simulated heat wave on composition of a marine community. Oikos 119:1909–1918. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1600-0706.2010.18663.x
Yang Q, Cokelet ED, Stabeno PJ et al (2019) How “The Blob” affected groundfish distributions in the Gulf of Alaska. Fish Oceanogr 28:fog.12422. https://doi.org/10.1111/fog.12422
Acknowledgements
The authors thank Vincent Kujala for computational assistance and William J. Skirving for sharing the CoralTemp Sea Surface Temperature (SST) datasets at the early state of data publication. This work was supported by a Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC) Discovery Grant awarded to Simon D. Donner and a University of British Columbia Four Year Doctoral Fellowship (4YF) awarded to Xinru Li.
Funding
This research was funded by natural sciences and engineering research council of canada (nserc) discovery grant, university of British Columbia Four Year Doctoral Fellowship (4YF).
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Contributions
Both authors contributed to the study conception and design. XL conducted Data collection, curation, analysis and visualization and written the original draft. SDD provided critical comments and editing on the draft. Both authors read and approved the final manuscript.
Corresponding author
Ethics declarations
Conflict of interest
Not applicable.
Ethical approval
Not applicable.
Consent to participate
Both authors consent to participate.
Consent for publication
Both authors would like the manuscript to be considered for publication in Climate Dynamics.
Additional information
Publisher's Note
Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.
Supplementary Information
Below is the link to the electronic supplementary material.
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Li, X., Donner, S.D. Lengthening of warm periods increased the intensity of warm-season marine heatwaves over the past 4 decades. Clim Dyn 59, 2643–2654 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00382-022-06227-y
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00382-022-06227-y