A global assessment of marine heatwaves and their drivers.
Neil J Holbrook, Hillary A Scannell, Alexander Sen Gupta, Jessica A Benthuysen, Ming Feng, Eric C J Oliver, Lisa V Alexander, Michael T Burrows, Markus G Donat, Alistair J Hobday, Pippa J Moore, Sarah E Perkins-Kirkpatrick, Dan A Smale, Sandra C Straub, Thomas Wernberg
Author Information
Neil J Holbrook: Institute for Marine and Antarctic Studies, University of Tasmania, Hobart, 7001, Tasmania, Australia. neil.holbrook@utas.edu.au. ORCID
Hillary A Scannell: School of Oceanography, University of Washington, Seattle, 98105, WA, USA. ORCID
Alexander Sen Gupta: Climate Change Research Centre, The University of New South Wales, Sydney, 2052, Australia. ORCID
Jessica A Benthuysen: Australian Institute of Marine Science, Townsville, 4810, Queensland, Australia. ORCID
Ming Feng: CSIRO Oceans and Atmosphere, Indian Ocean Marine Research Centre, Crawley, 6009, Western Australia, Australia. ORCID
Eric C J Oliver: Institute for Marine and Antarctic Studies, University of Tasmania, Hobart, 7001, Tasmania, Australia. ORCID
Lisa V Alexander: Climate Change Research Centre, The University of New South Wales, Sydney, 2052, Australia.
Michael T Burrows: Scottish Association for Marine Science, Scottish Marine Institute, Oban, Argyll, Scotland, PA37 1QA, UK. ORCID
Markus G Donat: Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence for Climate Extremes, The University of New South Wales, Sydney, 2052, New South Wales, Australia. ORCID
Pippa J Moore: Institute of Biological, Environmental and Rural Sciences, Aberystwyth University, Aberystwyth, SY23 3DA, UK. ORCID
Sarah E Perkins-Kirkpatrick: Climate Change Research Centre, The University of New South Wales, Sydney, 2052, Australia.
Dan A Smale: Marine Biological Association of the United Kingdom, The Laboratory, Citadel Hill, Plymouth, PL1 2PB, UK. ORCID
Sandra C Straub: UWA Oceans Institute and School of Biological Sciences, The University of Western Australia, Crawley, 6009, Western Australia, Australia. ORCID
Thomas Wernberg: UWA Oceans Institute and School of Biological Sciences, The University of Western Australia, Crawley, 6009, Western Australia, Australia. ORCID
Marine heatwaves (MHWs) can cause devastating impacts to marine life. Despite the serious consequences of MHWs, our understanding of their drivers is largely based on isolated case studies rather than any systematic unifying assessment. Here we provide the first global assessment under a consistent framework by combining a confidence assessment of the historical refereed literature from 1950 to February 2016, together with the analysis of MHWs determined from daily satellite sea surface temperatures from 1982-2016, to identify the important local processes, large-scale climate modes and teleconnections that are associated with MHWs regionally. Clear patterns emerge, including coherent relationships between enhanced or suppressed MHW occurrences with the dominant climate modes across most regions of the globe - an important exception being western boundary current regions where reports of MHW events are few and ocean-climate relationships are complex. These results provide a global baseline for future MHW process and prediction studies.
