Identification

Title

Future changes in the intensity and duration of marine heat and cold waves: Insights from coupled model initial-condition large ensembles

Abstract

The future evolution of sea surface temperature (SST) extremes is of great concern, not only for the health of marine ecosystems and sustainability of commercial fisheries, but also for precipitation extremes fueled by moisture evaporated from the ocean. This study examines the projected influence of anthropogenic climate change on the intensity and duration of monthly SST extremes, hereafter termed marine heat waves (MHWs) and marine cold waves (MCWs), based on initial-condition large ensembles with seven Earth system models. The large number of simulations (30-100) with each model allows for robust quantification of future changes in both the mean state and variability in each model. In general, models indicate that future changes in variability will cause MHW and MCW events to intensify in the northern extratropics and weaken in the tropics and Southern Ocean, and to shorten in duration in many areas. These changes are generally symmetric between MHWs and MCWs, except for the longitude of duration change in the tropical Pacific and sign of duration change in the Arctic. Projected changes in ENSO account for a large fraction of the variability-induced changes in MHW and MCW characteristics in each model and are responsible for much of the intermodel spread as a result of differences in future ENSO behavior. The variability-related changes in MHW and MCW characteristics noted above are superimposed upon large mean-state changes. Indeed, their contribution to the total change in SST during MHW and MCW events is generally ,10% except in polar regions where they contribute upward of 50%.

Resource type

document

Resource locator

Unique resource identifier

code

https://n2t.org/ark:/85065/d7vd73m0

codeSpace

Dataset language

eng

Spatial reference system

code identifying the spatial reference system

Classification of spatial data and services

Topic category

geoscientificInformation

Keywords

Keyword set

keyword value

Text

originating controlled vocabulary

title

Resource Type

reference date

date type

publication

effective date

2016-01-01T00:00:00Z

Geographic location

West bounding longitude

East bounding longitude

North bounding latitude

South bounding latitude

Temporal reference

Temporal extent

Begin position

End position

Dataset reference date

date type

publication

effective date

2024-03-15T00:00:00Z

Frequency of update

Quality and validity

Lineage

Conformity

Data format

name of format

version of format

Constraints related to access and use

Constraint set

Use constraints

Limitations on public access

None

Responsible organisations

Responsible party

contact position

OpenSky Support

organisation name

UCAR/NCAR - Library

full postal address

PO Box 3000

Boulder

80307-3000

email address

opensky@ucar.edu

web address

http://opensky.ucar.edu/

name: homepage

responsible party role

pointOfContact

Metadata on metadata

Metadata point of contact