Longer and more frequent marine heatwaves over the past century

Abstract

Heatwaves are important climatic extremes in atmospheric and oceanic systems that can have devastating and long-term impacts on ecosystems, with subsequent socioeconomic consequences. Recent prominent marine heatwaves have attracted considerable scientific and public interest. Despite this, a comprehensive assessment of how these ocean temperature extremes have been changing globally is missing. Using a range of ocean temperature data including global records of daily satellite observations, daily in situ measurements and gridded monthly in situ-based data sets, we identify significant increases in marine heatwaves over the past century. We find that from 1925 to 2016, global average marine heatwave frequency and duration increased by 34% and 17%, respectively, resulting in a 54% increase in annual marine heatwave days globally. Importantly, these trends can largely be explained by increases in mean ocean temperatures, suggesting that we can expect further increases in marine heatwave days under continued global warming. Marine heatwaves are climatic extremes with devastating and long-term impacts on marine ecosystems, fisheries and aquaculture. Here the authors use a range of ocean temperature observations to identify significant increases in marine heatwaves over the past century.

Keywords

Affiliated Institutions

• Australian Institute of Marine Science AU
• Dalhousie University CA
• Australian Research Council AU
• Marine Biological Association of the United Kingdom GB
• Aberystwyth University GB
• Scottish Association For Marine Science GB
• University of Washington US
• CSIRO Oceans and Atmosphere AU
• The University of Western Australia AU
• Institute of Biological, Environmental and Rural Sciences GB
• University of Tasmania AU
• UNSW Sydney AU

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