Heat waves—like the one that blistered the Pacific Northwest last June—also occur underwater.
Heat waves—like the one that blistered the Pacific Northwest last June—also occur underwater. A new study in Frontiers in Marine Science paints a worrisome picture of recent and projected trends in marine heat waves within the nation’s largest estuary, with dire implications for the marine life and coastal economy of the Chesapeake Bay and other similarly impacted shallow-water ecosystems.
The study’s authors, Drs. Piero Mazzini and Cassia Pianca of William & Mary’s Virginia Institute of Marine Science, note they saw “significant upward trends in the frequency and yearly cumulative intensity of marine heat waves within the Chesapeake Bay.”
The pair based their analysis on long-term measurements of water temperature from 6 sites along the Bay’s 200-mile length, with record length varying between 26 and 35 years. Like other researchers, they defined a marine heat wave as any period of 5 or more consecutive days with water temperatures warmer than 90% of those measured on the same date and in the same spot as in years past. They analyzed the record of Bay heat waves in terms of frequency, intensity, duration, and cumulative temperature stress.
Read more at Virginia Institute of Marine Science
Photo Credit: BruceEmmerling via Pixabay
