Marine Heatwaves in the Chesapeake Bay: Characteristics, Subsurface Structure and Impact on Hypoxia

Marine Heatwaves (MHWs) are prolonged events of anomalously warm sea water temperature, and have major detrimental effects to marine ecosystems and the world's economy. Thanks to satellite remote sensing of sea surface temperature, significant advances have been made regarding the characterization and impact of MHWs on global scales, however, these data are typically inadequate to resolve most estuarine environments with complex shorelines and reduced spatial scales. In our work we analyzed a novel data set with over three decades of in situ surface and subsurface temperature records to investigate MHWs in the largest estuary in the US: the Chesapeake Bay. Our major findings will be presented in detail, including MHW characteristics in the Bay, their trends, subsurface structure and impact on Bay hypoxia. Projections of trends found in our work suggest that by the end of the century the Chesapeake Bay will reach a semi-permanent MHW state, when extreme temperatures will be present over half of the year, and thus could have devastating impacts to the bay ecosystem and regional economy. Improving our basic understanding of MHWs, their trends and impact on hypoxia in the Chesapeake Bay is necessary to guide management decisions in this valuable environment.