Most people have experienced a heat wave on land. But heat waves can strike in the ocean, too. And as the planet continues to warm, marine heat waves are growing longer and deadlier, hurting the seafood supply that billions of people worldwide rely on for their food and livelihoods.
Researchers say a controversial strategy to shield Earth from some of the sun’s rays would offer unequal protection for the oceans and communities that depend on them, leaving 25% to 75% of the world’s seas still at risk from overheating, models suggest.
The findings were published in the journal Environmental Research: Climate.
Author Lala Kounta started studying marine heat waves in 2020, when unusually warm waters off the coast of Senegal where she grew up triggered a toxic algal bloom that made hundreds of fishermen sick. “The consequences are already visible,” said Kounta, a physical oceanographer and postdoctoral scholar working with professor Phoebe Zarnetske in MSU’s Ecology, Evolution and Behavior Program.