Abstract
Marine heatwaves have become more frequent and intense under anthropogenic warming, posing increasing threats to marine ecosystems and coastal societies, necessitating a better understanding of their mechanism and predictability. Here we show how ocean dynamics modulate marine heatwaves globally by comparing dynamic and slab ocean climate model simulations. We discover that ocean dynamics significantly promote marine heatwave intensity and duration in mid-to-high latitude oceans, as well as the eastern tropical Pacific where marine heatwaves are inherently linked to extreme El Niño events. Our mixed-layer heat budget analysis unravels that heat accumulation during marine heatwave episodes is strongly influenced by vertical mixing and horizontal transport processes, so that warm sea surface temperature extremes in dynamic ocean differ in magnitude and evolution rhythm from those in slab ocean. We further find robust multi-year potential predictability of marine heatwave in the North Atlantic with a dynamic ocean, owing primarily to the predictability of the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation. Our findings emphasize the irreplaceable role of oceanic dynamics in marine heatwave evolution and predictability, with important implications for future climate extreme prediction and adaptation strategies.
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Data availability
CESM1 model data are available at https://gdex.ucar.edu/datasets/d651027/dataaccess/. CMIP3 model data are available at https://aims2.llnl.gov/search. ERSSTv5 data are available at https://www.ncei.noaa.gov/products/extended-reconstructed-sst. CMAP Precipitation data are available at https://psl.noaa.gov/data/gridded/data.cmap.html.
Code availability
Figures are generated via the NCAR Command Language (NCL, Version 6.5.0) [Software]. (2018). Boulder, Colorado: UCAR/NCAR/CISL/TDD (https://doi.org/10.5065/D6WD3XH5). The codes to generate Figs. 1–5 are available from Zenodo66 at https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.18357158.
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Acknowledgements
This study has been supported by U.S. National Science Foundation (OCE-2123422, AGS-2053121, and AGS-2237743). We thank Timothy M. DelSole for helpful comments and suggestions.
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X.R. performed the analysis and wrote the original draft of the paper. W.L. conceived the study. L.Z. guided the predictability analysis. All authors contributed to interpreting the results and made improvements to the paper.
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Ren, X., Liu, W. & Zhang, L. Ocean dynamics shape marine heatwaves and their predictability. Nat Commun (2026). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-026-69509-7
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-026-69509-7
