The Role of Clouds in Coral Bleaching Events Over the Great Barrier Reef

Wenhui Zhao; Yi Huang; Steven Siems; Michael Manton

doi:10.1029/2021GL093936

The Role of Clouds in Coral Bleaching Events Over the Great Barrier Reef

Wenhui Zhao, Yi Huang, Steven Siems, Michael Manton

School of Earth Atmosphere and Environment

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › Research › peer-review

10 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

Thermal coral bleaching events (CBEs) over the Pacific, including those over the Great Barrier Reef (GBR), have commonly been linked to the El Niño–Southern Oscillation (ENSO), with bleaching reported to be a direct result of sea surface temperature (SST) anomalies driven by El Niño. However, such a relationship cannot explain CBEs that occurred during La Niña or the neutral phase of the ENSO. Here, we show that the GBR is characterized by a significant negative correlation between total cloud cover anomaly (TCCA) and lagged SST anomaly (SSTA) whose magnitude and spatial extent are greater than the SSTA-ENSO correlation. This significant negative TCCA-SSTA (lagged) correlation prevails over two-thirds of the study domain even after the ENSO signal is removed, which suggests that local-scale reduced cloud cover is a key component of the regional warm shallow water formation over the GBR and the occurrence of thermal CBEs.

Original language	English
Article number	e2021GL093936
Number of pages	10
Journal	Geophysical Research Letters
Volume	48
Issue number	14
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1029/2021GL093936
Publication status	Published - 28 Jul 2021

Keywords

Clouds
coral bleaching
ENSO
SST
the Great Barrier Reef

UN SDGs

This output contributes to the following UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)

Access to Document

10.1029/2021GL093936

Cite this

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title = "The Role of Clouds in Coral Bleaching Events Over the Great Barrier Reef",

abstract = "Thermal coral bleaching events (CBEs) over the Pacific, including those over the Great Barrier Reef (GBR), have commonly been linked to the El Ni{\~n}o–Southern Oscillation (ENSO), with bleaching reported to be a direct result of sea surface temperature (SST) anomalies driven by El Ni{\~n}o. However, such a relationship cannot explain CBEs that occurred during La Ni{\~n}a or the neutral phase of the ENSO. Here, we show that the GBR is characterized by a significant negative correlation between total cloud cover anomaly (TCCA) and lagged SST anomaly (SSTA) whose magnitude and spatial extent are greater than the SSTA-ENSO correlation. This significant negative TCCA-SSTA (lagged) correlation prevails over two-thirds of the study domain even after the ENSO signal is removed, which suggests that local-scale reduced cloud cover is a key component of the regional warm shallow water formation over the GBR and the occurrence of thermal CBEs.",

keywords = "Clouds, coral bleaching, ENSO, SST, the Great Barrier Reef",

author = "Wenhui Zhao and Yi Huang and Steven Siems and Michael Manton",

note = "Funding Information: The authors acknowledge support from the Australia Research Council through the Centre of Excellence for Climate Extremes. The authors also thank Dr Caroline Poulsen and Dr Stengel Martin for making available the long‐term Cloud_cci data set and many useful discussions ( https://public.satproj.klima.dwd.de/data/ESA_Cloud_CCI/DOIs/v3.0/DOI_ESA_Cloud_cci_AVHRR-PM_V003_landingpage.html ). Publisher Copyright: {\textcopyright} 2021. American Geophysical Union. All Rights Reserved. Copyright: Copyright 2021 Elsevier B.V., All rights reserved.",

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doi = "10.1029/2021GL093936",

language = "English",

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N1 - Funding Information: The authors acknowledge support from the Australia Research Council through the Centre of Excellence for Climate Extremes. The authors also thank Dr Caroline Poulsen and Dr Stengel Martin for making available the long‐term Cloud_cci data set and many useful discussions ( https://public.satproj.klima.dwd.de/data/ESA_Cloud_CCI/DOIs/v3.0/DOI_ESA_Cloud_cci_AVHRR-PM_V003_landingpage.html ). Publisher Copyright: © 2021. American Geophysical Union. All Rights Reserved. Copyright: Copyright 2021 Elsevier B.V., All rights reserved.

PY - 2021/7/28

Y1 - 2021/7/28

N2 - Thermal coral bleaching events (CBEs) over the Pacific, including those over the Great Barrier Reef (GBR), have commonly been linked to the El Niño–Southern Oscillation (ENSO), with bleaching reported to be a direct result of sea surface temperature (SST) anomalies driven by El Niño. However, such a relationship cannot explain CBEs that occurred during La Niña or the neutral phase of the ENSO. Here, we show that the GBR is characterized by a significant negative correlation between total cloud cover anomaly (TCCA) and lagged SST anomaly (SSTA) whose magnitude and spatial extent are greater than the SSTA-ENSO correlation. This significant negative TCCA-SSTA (lagged) correlation prevails over two-thirds of the study domain even after the ENSO signal is removed, which suggests that local-scale reduced cloud cover is a key component of the regional warm shallow water formation over the GBR and the occurrence of thermal CBEs.

AB - Thermal coral bleaching events (CBEs) over the Pacific, including those over the Great Barrier Reef (GBR), have commonly been linked to the El Niño–Southern Oscillation (ENSO), with bleaching reported to be a direct result of sea surface temperature (SST) anomalies driven by El Niño. However, such a relationship cannot explain CBEs that occurred during La Niña or the neutral phase of the ENSO. Here, we show that the GBR is characterized by a significant negative correlation between total cloud cover anomaly (TCCA) and lagged SST anomaly (SSTA) whose magnitude and spatial extent are greater than the SSTA-ENSO correlation. This significant negative TCCA-SSTA (lagged) correlation prevails over two-thirds of the study domain even after the ENSO signal is removed, which suggests that local-scale reduced cloud cover is a key component of the regional warm shallow water formation over the GBR and the occurrence of thermal CBEs.

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The Role of Clouds in Coral Bleaching Events Over the Great Barrier Reef

Abstract

Keywords

UN SDGs

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ARC Centre of Excellence for Climate Extremes

Cite this

The Role of Clouds in Coral Bleaching Events Over the Great Barrier Reef

Abstract

Keywords

UN SDGs

Access to Document

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Projects

ARC Centre of Excellence for Climate Extremes

Cite this