Long-term warming and interannual variability contributions’ to marine heatwaves in the Mediterranean

Abstract

In the past 40 years, marine heatwaves (MHWs) have experienced a worldwide increase in duration, intensity, frequency and spatial extent. This trend has been particularly evident in the Mediterranean, where exceptional events were observed during the summers of 2022, 2018 and 2003. This study proposes a twofold analysis of MHWs in the Mediterranean, focusing on their statistical characteristics and physical causes. A satellite dataset is utilized to analyze MHWs via an index, called activity, which aggregates the occurrence, duration, intensity and spatial extent of events. Our results show that the trend toward more active summers for MHWs is strongest in the western Mediterranean basin and long-term warming is the main driver in the whole Mediterranean basin. We also show that in the western and Adriatic Mediterranean region, the increase of SST variability contributes about a third to the MHW activity long-term trend whereas in the central, eastern and Aegean basins, the variability of SST mostly acts to diminish this trend. Through principal component analysis (PCA) of MHW activity, we found that the three most severe summer MHW events in the Mediterranean occur at the same location where the overall trend is highest. Interannual variability increased MHW activity in 2022 around the Balearic Sea, in 2018 in the eastern basins and in 2003 in the central basins. A joint PCA revealed that the long-term trend in MHW activity co-varies with a positive geopotential height anomaly over the Mediterranean, which is consistent with the generation of atmospheric-driven MHWs and which, at the North Atlantic scale, resembles the positive phase of the summer East Atlantic. The additional interannual variability contribution to these three severe summers was associated with western warming and projected onto the positive phase of the summer North Atlantic Oscillation. The increase in MHW over the last 40 years is also associated in the western, central and Adriatic regions with increased downward short-wave radiation and in the eastern Mediterranean with decreased upward long-wave radiation. Increased upward latent heat flux partly compensated for the MHW long-term increase over the whole Mediterranean basin. The interannual variability of MHW activity is related in the western, central and Adriatic basins to increased downward sensible and decreased upward latent heat flux possibly due to warm and humid air intrusion.