Model-based assessment of the role of human-induced climate change in the 2005 Caribbean coral bleaching event
Episodes of mass coral bleaching around the world in recent decades have been attributed to periods of anomalously warm ocean temperatures. In 2005, the sea surface temperature (SST) anomaly in the tropical North Atlantic that may have contributed to the strong hurricane season caused widespread cor...
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ftpubmed:oai:pubmedcentral.nih.gov:1838457 2023-05-15T17:34:23+02:00 Model-based assessment of the role of human-induced climate change in the 2005 Caribbean coral bleaching event Donner, Simon D. Knutson, Thomas R. Oppenheimer, Michael 2007-03-27 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1838457 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17360373 https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.0610122104 en eng National Academy of Sciences http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1838457 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17360373 http://dx.doi.org/10.1073/pnas.0610122104 © 2007 by The National Academy of Sciences of the USA Physical Sciences Text 2007 ftpubmed https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.0610122104 2013-08-31T19:27:37Z Episodes of mass coral bleaching around the world in recent decades have been attributed to periods of anomalously warm ocean temperatures. In 2005, the sea surface temperature (SST) anomaly in the tropical North Atlantic that may have contributed to the strong hurricane season caused widespread coral bleaching in the Eastern Caribbean. Here, we use two global climate models to evaluate the contribution of natural climate variability and anthropogenic forcing to the thermal stress that caused the 2005 coral bleaching event. Historical temperature data and simulations for the 1870–2000 period show that the observed warming in the region is unlikely to be due to unforced climate variability alone. Simulation of background climate variability suggests that anthropogenic warming may have increased the probability of occurrence of significant thermal stress events for corals in this region by an order of magnitude. Under scenarios of future greenhouse gas emissions, mass coral bleaching in the Eastern Caribbean may become a biannual event in 20–30 years. However, if corals and their symbionts can adapt by 1–1.5°C, such mass bleaching events may not begin to recur at potentially harmful intervals until the latter half of the century. The delay could enable more time to alter the path of greenhouse gas emissions, although long-term “committed warming” even after stabilization of atmospheric CO2 levels may still represent an additional long-term threat to corals. Text North Atlantic PubMed Central (PMC) Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 104 13 5483 5488 |
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Physical Sciences Donner, Simon D. Knutson, Thomas R. Oppenheimer, Michael Model-based assessment of the role of human-induced climate change in the 2005 Caribbean coral bleaching event |
topic_facet |
Physical Sciences |
description |
Episodes of mass coral bleaching around the world in recent decades have been attributed to periods of anomalously warm ocean temperatures. In 2005, the sea surface temperature (SST) anomaly in the tropical North Atlantic that may have contributed to the strong hurricane season caused widespread coral bleaching in the Eastern Caribbean. Here, we use two global climate models to evaluate the contribution of natural climate variability and anthropogenic forcing to the thermal stress that caused the 2005 coral bleaching event. Historical temperature data and simulations for the 1870–2000 period show that the observed warming in the region is unlikely to be due to unforced climate variability alone. Simulation of background climate variability suggests that anthropogenic warming may have increased the probability of occurrence of significant thermal stress events for corals in this region by an order of magnitude. Under scenarios of future greenhouse gas emissions, mass coral bleaching in the Eastern Caribbean may become a biannual event in 20–30 years. However, if corals and their symbionts can adapt by 1–1.5°C, such mass bleaching events may not begin to recur at potentially harmful intervals until the latter half of the century. The delay could enable more time to alter the path of greenhouse gas emissions, although long-term “committed warming” even after stabilization of atmospheric CO2 levels may still represent an additional long-term threat to corals. |
format |
Text |
author |
Donner, Simon D. Knutson, Thomas R. Oppenheimer, Michael |
author_facet |
Donner, Simon D. Knutson, Thomas R. Oppenheimer, Michael |
author_sort |
Donner, Simon D. |
title |
Model-based assessment of the role of human-induced climate change in the 2005 Caribbean coral bleaching event |
title_short |
Model-based assessment of the role of human-induced climate change in the 2005 Caribbean coral bleaching event |
title_full |
Model-based assessment of the role of human-induced climate change in the 2005 Caribbean coral bleaching event |
title_fullStr |
Model-based assessment of the role of human-induced climate change in the 2005 Caribbean coral bleaching event |
title_full_unstemmed |
Model-based assessment of the role of human-induced climate change in the 2005 Caribbean coral bleaching event |
title_sort |
model-based assessment of the role of human-induced climate change in the 2005 caribbean coral bleaching event |
publisher |
National Academy of Sciences |
publishDate |
2007 |
url |
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1838457 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17360373 https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.0610122104 |
genre |
North Atlantic |
genre_facet |
North Atlantic |
op_relation |
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1838457 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17360373 http://dx.doi.org/10.1073/pnas.0610122104 |
op_rights |
© 2007 by The National Academy of Sciences of the USA |
op_doi |
https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.0610122104 |
container_title |
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences |
container_volume |
104 |
container_issue |
13 |
container_start_page |
5483 |
op_container_end_page |
5488 |
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1766133201574559744 |