The world’s strongest ocean currents, which play key roles in fisheries and ocean ecosystems, will experience more intense marine heatwaves than the global average over coming decades, according to a paper published today in Nature Communications by researchers from the ARC Centre of Excellence for Climate Extremes at the University of Tasmania and CSIRO.
Sections of Australia’s Leeuwin current and East Australian Current; the United States Gulf Stream; Japan’s Kuroshio current; and the most powerful ocean current of all, the Antarctic Circumpolar Current, will all see the intensity of heatwave events ratchet up over the next 30 years.
However, while the intensity of individual marine heatwave events in these areas is likely to increase faster than the global average, the number of marine heatwave days appear to increase at a lower than average rate. And what happens around these currents is even more interesting.
Continue reading at ARC Centre of Excellence for Climate Extremes
Image via ARC Centre of Excellence for Climate Extremes