Global climate-change trends detected in indicators of ocean ecology.
Nature
; 619(7970): 551-554, 2023 Jul.
Article
in En
| MEDLINE
| ID: mdl-37438519
ABSTRACT
Strong natural variability has been thought to mask possible climate-change-driven trends in phytoplankton populations from Earth-observing satellites. More than 30 years of continuous data were thought to be needed to detect a trend driven by climate change1. Here we show that climate-change trends emerge more rapidly in ocean colour (remote-sensing reflectance, Rrs), because Rrs is multivariate and some wavebands have low interannual variability. We analyse a 20-year Rrs time series from the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) aboard the Aqua satellite, and find significant trends in Rrs for 56% of the global surface ocean, mainly equatorward of 40°. The climate-change signal in Rrs emerges after 20 years in similar regions covering a similar fraction of the ocean in a state-of-the-art ecosystem model2, which suggests that our observed trends indicate shifts in ocean colour-and, by extension, in surface-ocean ecosystems-that are driven by climate change. On the whole, low-latitude oceans have become greener in the past 20 years.
Full text:
1
Database:
MEDLINE
Main subject:
Phytoplankton
/
Climate Change
/
Oceans and Seas
/
Color
/
Ecosystem
/
Spatio-Temporal Analysis
/
Satellite Imagery
Type of study:
Prognostic_studies
Language:
En
Journal:
Nature
Year:
2023
Type:
Article
Affiliation country:
United kingdom