An international team, led by Australian researchers from the ARC Centre of Excellence for Climate Extremes (CLEX) and the Institute for Marine and Antarctic (IMAS) studies, have published in Nature Communications the first global assessment of the major drivers of marine heatwaves.
Marine heatwaves are becoming longer and more frequent. A global assessment of marine heatwaves has concluded that they have “the capacity to restructure entire ecosystems and disrupt the provision of ecological goods and services in the coming decades".
The increase in frequency and intensity of ocean heatwaves over the past 30 years has had profound impacts on certain marine ecosystems and significantly impacted the industries that depend on them. According to new research in Nature Climate Change, marine heatwaves are now a clear and present threat to global biodiversity.
This paper proposes a standard categorisation and naming framework for marine heatwaves that works in a similar way to schemes used for tropical cyclones or earthquakes.
An unusually strong East Australian Current extension leads to an increased probability of marine heatwave days around Tasmania. Conversely, a strong Zeehan Current during these seasons decreased the probability of marine heatwave days in this region.
This paper examined the likelihood of extreme marine heatwaves global using climate models simulations, with and without anthropogenic influences, concluding that these events were up to fifty times more likely due to anthropogenic climate change.
Using France as a case study, this project aims to create a climatology of heatwaves and droughts to investigate possible connections with voting patterns. The ultimate goal would be to help predict voting patterns in the future and to see whether the techniques could be applied more widely to other countries.
The ARC Centre of Excellence for Climate Extremes' Heatwave Research Program is holding a full day meeting to explore current research and the future direction of the program.
The Climate Variability and Teleconnections Research Program has formed into three separate clusters – SAM, Tropical Variability and Oceans.
The Heatwaves and Cold Outbreaks Research Program is in full swing, welcoming a new associate investigator in Debbie Hudson from the Bureau of Meteorology and pressing ahead with research across a range of areas.