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Arctic warming contributes to increase in Northeast Pacific marine heatwave days over the past decades

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Version 2 2024-09-27, 02:13
Version 1 2023-05-21, 16:23
journal contribution
posted on 2024-09-27, 02:13 authored by S-Y Song, S-W Yeh, H Kim, Neil HolbrookNeil Holbrook
The frequency and duration of marine heatwaves have been increasing with ocean warming due to climate change. In particular, the Northeast Pacific has experienced intense and extensive marine heatwaves since the late 1990s – characteristically called “the Blob”. Here, an investigation of satellite-derived and reanalysis data supported by idealized coupled model experiments show that Arctic warming plays an important role in the increase in Northeast Pacific marine heatwave days during boreal summers. Strong Arctic warming has acted to change the atmospheric circulation pattern over the Northeast Pacific and reduce the low-level cloud fraction from late spring to early summer. We show that the enhancement of solar radiative heat fluxes and reduced latent heat loss over a relatively large area has favored an increase in sea surface temperatures and marine heatwave days. An idealized model experiment performed here, designed to isolate the impact of Arctic warming, supports this hypothesis. The projected changes of Arctic climate on the occurrence of marine heatwaves should be considered in climate change adaptation and mitigation plans.

History

Publication title

Communications Earth & Environment

Volume

4

Issue

1

Article number

25

Number

25

Pagination

1-9

ISSN

2662-4435

Department/School

Oceans and Cryosphere

Publisher

Nature Publishing Group

Publication status

  • Published

Place of publication

United Kingdom

Rights statement

© 2023 The Author(s). Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) License, https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Socio-economic Objectives

190599 Understanding climate change not elsewhere classified

UN Sustainable Development Goals

13 Climate Action

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