Frontiers Science Center for Deep Ocean Multispheres and Earth System and Key Laboratory of Physical Oceanography, Ocean University of China, Qingdao, China.
Laoshan Laboratory, Qingdao, China.
Nat Commun. 2023 May 23;14(1):2970. doi: 10.1038/s41467-023-38811-z.
Marine heatwaves (MHWs) are prolonged extreme warm water events in the ocean, exerting devastating impacts on marine ecosystems. A comprehensive knowledge of physical processes controlling MHW life cycles is pivotal to improve MHW forecast capacity, yet it is still lacking. Here, we use a historical simulation from a global eddy-resolving climate model with improved representation of MHWs, and show that heat flux convergence by oceanic mesoscale eddies acts as a dominant driver of MHW life cycles over most parts of the global ocean. In particular, the mesoscale eddies make an important contribution to growth and decay of MHWs, whose characteristic spatial scale is comparable or even larger than that of mesoscale eddies. The effect of mesoscale eddies is spatially heterogeneous, becoming more dominant in the western boundary currents and their extensions, the Southern Ocean, as well as the eastern boundary upwelling systems. This study reveals the crucial role of mesoscale eddies in controlling the global MHW life cycles and highlights that using eddy-resolving ocean models is essential, albeit not necessarily fully sufficient, for accurate MHW forecasts.
海洋热浪（MHWs）是海洋中长时间的极端暖水事件，对海洋生态系统造成了毁灭性的影响。全面了解控制 MHW 生命周期的物理过程对于提高 MHW 预测能力至关重要，但目前仍缺乏这方面的知识。在这里，我们使用具有改进的 MHW 表示的全球涡旋分辨气候模型的历史模拟，结果表明海洋中尺度涡旋的热通量辐合是全球海洋大部分地区 MHW 生命周期的主要驱动因素。特别是，中尺度涡旋对 MHW 的生长和衰减做出了重要贡献，其特征空间尺度与中尺度涡旋相当，甚至更大。中尺度涡旋的影响在空间上是不均匀的，在西部边界流及其延伸、南大洋以及东部边界上升流系统中变得更加显著。本研究揭示了中尺度涡旋在控制全球 MHW 生命周期中的关键作用，并强调了使用涡旋分辨海洋模式对于准确预测 MHW 是至关重要的，尽管这并不一定完全足够。
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