New publication on the impact of coastal MHWs on shallow water sediments

Our colleague Spencer Tassone published a relevant manuscript in the journal Estuaries & Coasts. It is the first paper to investigate the transfer of marine heatwaves from the water column into vegetated coastal sediments. As it turns out, ~80% of the time there is a coastal marine heatwave, there is also a co-occurring sediment heatwave. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12237-023-01314-7

 

The paper published by Spencer Tassones and Michael Pace, titled Increased Frequency of Sediment Heatwaves in a Virginia Seagrass Meadow, is focused on the MHW propagation into surficial sediments to cause sediment heatwaves (SHW) within a shallow, subtidal seagrass meadow in Virginia, USA. Among other interesting results, they found that sediment heatwave frequency increased at a rate twice that of MHWs in the average global open ocean, coinciding with a 172% increase in the annual number of SHW days, from 11 to 30 days year−1 between 1994 and 2022.