Large spread in marine heatwave assessments for Asia and the Indo-Pacific between sea-surface-temperature products

Abstract

Abstract Prolonged extremely warm ocean temperatures have great impacts on both natural ecosystems and human communities. These phenomena (i.e., marine heatwaves) could be easily monitored globally by satellite-based sea surface temperatures; however, the choice of datasets may lead to potential uncertainties in the marine heatwave assessment. Here we compared the marine heatwaves using three commonly used satellite products to illustrate the uncertainties over Asia and the Indo-Pacific. Distinct differences were found in the occurrence, duration, and long-term trend of marine heatwaves over both coastal and open oceans, while some discrepancies could become comparable with the obtained metrics themselves. Although differences in mean sea surface temperatures or their variances among datasets could not explain the abovementioned discrepancies, different sensors, procedures, and sea ice treatments in each dataset may contribute partially. Overall, our study suggests that the use of multiple datasets is crucial for evaluations of extreme events.