Upwelling delivers key oceanic subsidies to coral reef communities, supporting high biological productivity.

Changes to ocean stratification with climate change may restrict this natural phenomenon, removing a potential mechanism of temperature reprieve & nutrient delivery under a warming ocean.

We link positive phases of the Indian Ocean Dipole to anomalously deep surface mixed layer depths, showing that over the past 40yrs, positive dipole phases act to depress the surface mixed layer and effectively shut down upwelling across this archipelago.

Our loggers caught the 2019 Dipole event:

Using a machine learning statistical modelling framework, we identify the prominent atmospheric & oceanographic drivers of localized upwelling across an oceanic archipelago.

We reveal critical depths of the surface mixed layer where upwelling is enhanced or reduced on these shallow coral reefs.

Using high resolution temperature observations from 10-25 m depth over 18 months, we quantify the upwelling regime across ~200km of an oceanic archipelago in the central Indian Ocean.

We use Degree Cooling Hours (DCH) as an integrated metric of the duration and magnitude of upwelling events.

New paper!

‘Climate change impacts to upwelling and shallow reef nutrient sources across an oceanic archipelago’

Out now in Limnology and Oceanography @aslo.org

aslopubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/...

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Using high resolution temperature observations from 10-25 m depth over 18 months, we quantify the upwelling regime across ~200km of an oceanic archipelago in the central Indian Ocean.

We use Degree Cooling Hours (DCH) as an integrated metric of the duration and magnitude of upwelling events.