Whither warming in the Galápagos?
The Galápagos Islands play host to an iconic ecosystem—a UNESCO World Heritage Site and the second largest marine reserve in the world, home to several endangered species. The waters off the west coast of the Galápagos are also one of the few places in the world ocean that are presently cooling, wit...
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Online Access: | http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pclm.0000056 https://dx.plos.org/10.1371/journal.pclm.0000056 |
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crplos:10.1371/journal.pclm.0000056 2024-05-19T07:41:23+00:00 Whither warming in the Galápagos? Karnauskas, Kristopher B. Storto, Andrea National Aeronautics and Space Administration 2022 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pclm.0000056 https://dx.plos.org/10.1371/journal.pclm.0000056 en eng Public Library of Science (PLoS) http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ PLOS Climate volume 1, issue 9, page e0000056 ISSN 2767-3200 journal-article 2022 crplos https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pclm.0000056 2024-05-01T07:03:28Z The Galápagos Islands play host to an iconic ecosystem—a UNESCO World Heritage Site and the second largest marine reserve in the world, home to several endangered species. The waters off the west coast of the Galápagos are also one of the few places in the world ocean that are presently cooling, with potentially significant ecological consequences of this local reprieve from global warming. Here I show, using a recently developed high-resolution ocean state estimate, that the observed cooling in the Galápagos is the result of a strengthening of the wind-driven equatorial ocean circulation. An acceleration and shift of the Equatorial Undercurrent, which can be attributed to a strengthening of the cross-equatorial component of the trade wind in response to the interhemispheric gradient in surface warming, leads to a 54% increase in upwelling velocity along the western Galápagos Islands as well as increased shear-induced mixing. Analogous to other so-called “cold blobs,” such as the one south of Greenland in the North Atlantic, this is an early and important sentinel of a broader change in the tropical ocean circulation. Thus far, and for perhaps the very near future, the western shores of the Galápagos appear to offer refuge from some of the deleterious impacts of anthropogenic climate change including suppressed upwelling and surface warming. Article in Journal/Newspaper Greenland North Atlantic PLOS PLOS Climate 1 9 e0000056 |
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English |
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The Galápagos Islands play host to an iconic ecosystem—a UNESCO World Heritage Site and the second largest marine reserve in the world, home to several endangered species. The waters off the west coast of the Galápagos are also one of the few places in the world ocean that are presently cooling, with potentially significant ecological consequences of this local reprieve from global warming. Here I show, using a recently developed high-resolution ocean state estimate, that the observed cooling in the Galápagos is the result of a strengthening of the wind-driven equatorial ocean circulation. An acceleration and shift of the Equatorial Undercurrent, which can be attributed to a strengthening of the cross-equatorial component of the trade wind in response to the interhemispheric gradient in surface warming, leads to a 54% increase in upwelling velocity along the western Galápagos Islands as well as increased shear-induced mixing. Analogous to other so-called “cold blobs,” such as the one south of Greenland in the North Atlantic, this is an early and important sentinel of a broader change in the tropical ocean circulation. Thus far, and for perhaps the very near future, the western shores of the Galápagos appear to offer refuge from some of the deleterious impacts of anthropogenic climate change including suppressed upwelling and surface warming. |
author2 |
Storto, Andrea National Aeronautics and Space Administration |
format |
Article in Journal/Newspaper |
author |
Karnauskas, Kristopher B. |
spellingShingle |
Karnauskas, Kristopher B. Whither warming in the Galápagos? |
author_facet |
Karnauskas, Kristopher B. |
author_sort |
Karnauskas, Kristopher B. |
title |
Whither warming in the Galápagos? |
title_short |
Whither warming in the Galápagos? |
title_full |
Whither warming in the Galápagos? |
title_fullStr |
Whither warming in the Galápagos? |
title_full_unstemmed |
Whither warming in the Galápagos? |
title_sort |
whither warming in the galápagos? |
publisher |
Public Library of Science (PLoS) |
publishDate |
2022 |
url |
http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pclm.0000056 https://dx.plos.org/10.1371/journal.pclm.0000056 |
genre |
Greenland North Atlantic |
genre_facet |
Greenland North Atlantic |
op_source |
PLOS Climate volume 1, issue 9, page e0000056 ISSN 2767-3200 |
op_rights |
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ |
op_doi |
https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pclm.0000056 |
container_title |
PLOS Climate |
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1 |
container_issue |
9 |
container_start_page |
e0000056 |
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1799480984335286272 |