College of Life and Environmental Sciences, University of Exeter, Exeter, UK.
Marine Spatial Ecology Lab, School of Biological Sciences and ARC Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies, University of Queensland, St Lucia, Queensland, Australia.
Glob Chang Biol. 2022 Oct;28(19):5768-5780. doi: 10.1111/gcb.16323. Epub 2022 Aug 2.
Increases in the magnitude, frequency, and duration of warm seawater temperatures are causing mass coral mortality events across the globe. Although, even during the most extensive bleaching events, some reefs escape exposure to severe stress, constituting potential refugia. Here, we identify present-day climate refugia on the Great Barrier Reef (GBR) and project their persistence into the future. To do this, we apply semi-dynamic downscaling to an ensemble of climate projections released for the IPCC's recent sixth Assessment Report. We find that GBR locations experiencing the least thermal stress over the past 20 years have done so because of their oceanographic circumstance, which implies that longer-term persistence of climate refugia is feasible. Specifically, tidal and wind mixing of warm water away from the sea surface appears to provide relief from warming. However, on average this relative advantage only persists until global warming exceeds ~3°C.
海水温度升高的幅度、频率和持续时间正在导致全球范围内大规模珊瑚死亡事件。尽管如此，即使在最广泛的白化事件中，一些珊瑚礁也能避免受到严重的压力，构成潜在的避难所。在这里，我们确定了大堡礁（GBR）当前的气候避难所，并预测了它们在未来的持续时间。为此，我们将半动态降尺度应用于为 IPCC 最近的第六次评估报告发布的气候预测集合。我们发现，在过去 20 年中经历最少热应力的 GBR 地区之所以如此，是因为它们的海洋环境，这意味着气候避难所的长期存在是可行的。具体来说，潮汐和风吹动温暖的海水远离海面，似乎缓解了海水变暖的情况。然而，平均而言，这种相对优势仅持续到全球变暖超过约 3°C。
