Insights into projected changes in marine heatwaves from a high-resolution ocean circulation model

Global climate models project the intensification of marine heatwaves in coming decades due to global warming. However, the spatial resolution of these models is inadequate to resolve mesoscale processes that dominate variability in boundary current regions where societal and economic impacts of marine heatwaves are substantial. Here we compare the historical and projected changes in marine heatwaves in a 0.1° ocean model with 23 coarser-resolution climate models. Western boundary currents are the regions where the models disagree the most with observations and among themselves in simulating marine heatwaves of the past and the future. The lack of eddy-driven variability in the coarse-resolution models results in less intense marine heatwaves over the historical period and greater intensification in the coming decades. Although the projected changes agree well at the global scale, the greater spatial details around western boundary currents provided by the high-resolution model may be valuable for effective adaptation planning.