Fig. 5: Projected changes in mixed layer budget-driven warming (°C).
From: Projected amplification of summer marine heatwaves in a warming Northeast Pacific Ocean
Differences between +4 °C and present-day climates, a in the marine heatwave core, b coastal region and c central North Pacific, as defined in Fig. 1. The mixed layer budget-driven warming quantifies how combined changes in both surface heat fluxes and MLD affect the local temperature changes. The storyline change (red bars) is the total marine heatwave change signal, and results from the combined approximate regional mean and event-specific changes (yellow and blue bars respectively). The full mixed layer budget-driven warming from the net surface heat flux absorbed in the mixed layer (Qnet, shaded areas) is decomposed into net shortwave radiation, net longwave radiation, latent and sensible heat fluxes (QSW, QLW, Qlat and Qsens respectively). d Decomposition of the full event-specific budget-driven warming (blue bars in shaded areas in a–c), into the relative contributions of the event-specific change in net heat flux (Flux-varying contribution ∆SSTFlux, x-axis) and of the event-specific change in mixed layer depth (MLD-varying contribution ∆SSTMLD, y-axis) to the local temperature change. Their relative amplitude indicates whether event-specific budget-driven warming result from a Flux– or MLD–driven warming dampening or amplification (coloured quadrants). Note that this does not necessarily reflect their absolute importance relative to other terms of the full mixed layer heat budget (e.g., ocean dynamical processes and non-linear terms). Equally reinforcing contributions (\(x=y\)) and equally counteracting contributions (\(x=-y\)) are in plain and dashed lines, respectively. Complete analysis is in the Methods.
