Ocean deoxygenation; Extreme events; Marine ecosystems; Marine organisms; Global warming; Ocean observations; Climate change; High-resolution modeling; Earth System modeling; Ocean acidification
Frölicher Thomas L., Laufkötter Charlotte (2018), Emerging risks from marine heat waves, in
Nature Communications, 9(1), 650-650.
Cheung William W. L., Jones Miranda C., Reygondeau Gabriel, Frölicher Thomas L. (2018), Opportunities for climate-risk reduction through effective fisheries management, in
Global Change Biology.
Frölicher Thomas L., Fischer Erich M., Gruber Nicolas (2018), Marine heatwaves under global warming, in
Nature, 560(7718), 360-364.
Palter Jaime B., Frölicher Thomas L., Paynter David, John Jasmin G. (2018), Climate, ocean circulation, and sea level changes under stabilization and overshoot pathways to 1.5 K warming, in
Earth System Dynamics, 9(2), 817-828.
Morley James W., Selden Rebecca L., Latour Robert J., Frölicher Thomas L., Seagraves Richard J., Pinsky Malin L. (2018), Projecting shifts in thermal habitat for 686 species on the North American continental shelf, in
PLOS ONE, 13(5), e0196127-e0196127.
Franco A. C., Gruber N., Frölicher T. L., Kropuenske Artman L. (2018), Contrasting Impact of Future CO 2 Emission Scenarios on the Extent of CaCO 3 Mineral Undersaturation in the Humboldt Current System, in
Journal of Geophysical Research: Oceans, 123(3), 2018-2036.
Paynter D., Frölicher T. L., Horowitz L. W., Silvers L. G. (2018), Equilibrium Climate Sensitivity Obtained From Multimillennial Runs of Two GFDL Climate Models, in
Journal of Geophysical Research: Atmospheres, 123(4), 1921-1941.
Williams Richard G., Roussenov Vassil, Frölicher Thomas L., Goodwin Philip (2017), Drivers of Continued Surface Warming After Cessation of Carbon EmissionsDrivers of Continued Surface Warming, in
Geophysical Research Letters, 44(20), 10,633-10,642.
Extreme climate and weather events shape the structure of biological systems and affect the biogeochemical functions and services they provide for society in a fundamental manner. There is overwhelming evidence that the frequency, duration, intensity, and timing of extreme events on land are changing under global warming, increasing the risk of severe, pervasive and in some cases irreversible impacts on natural and socio-economic systems. In contrast, we know very little how extreme events in the ocean, especially those associated with warming, acidification, deoxygenation and nutrient stress will unfold in time and space, as this requires dense observations and high-resolution ocean models. In addition, our understanding of the role of ocean extreme events for marine organisms and ecosystem services is very poor. This knowledge gap is of particular concern as the ocean provides food security and livelihoods for about 15% of the world population.I will move knowledge boundaries by discovering and attributing past and future changes in ocean extremes, and by assessing and mapping the risk of these ocean extreme events for marine organisms and ecosystems. I will quantify historical changes in marine heat waves and ocean acidification extreme events by synthesizing and analyzing novel satellite-based and in-situ physical and biogeochemical ocean observations. Model-derived relationships among physical and biogeochemical variables will be used to underpin the extreme event assessment of the sparse oxygen and net primary production observations. A new high-resolution global Earth System Model version will be applied to quantify and understand the drivers of past and future changes in ocean extreme events and to attribute specific ocean extreme events to human-caused climate change and natural variability. The integration of available and newly developed marine ecosystem exposure and vulnerability indices into the high-resolution modeling framework allows me to quantify regional risk levels of marine organisms and ecosystems to key ocean extreme events. This project aims at a major breakthrough in our understanding of the fundamental processes governing ocean extreme events and whether organisms and ecosystems might be pushed to the limits of their resilience and even beyond, potentially causing dramatic and irreversible changes.