Marine heatwaves have wide-ranging implications for many marine systems, industries and coastal communities. Seasonal forecasting has an important role to play in both predicting and understanding these extreme events and providing advance warning for risk mitigation and operational decision support. The Bureau of Meteorology provides operational seasonal marine heatwave outlooks that are used by a wide range of stakeholders, including marine management agencies, fisheries and aquaculture.
Long-range outlooks are indicating a strong to very strong El Niño this coming summer, coupled with a possible positive Indian Ocean Dipole. The 2015-16 and 2023-24 El Niño events saw mass coral bleaching on the Great Barrier Reef and extensive marine heatwave conditions around Tasmania, the latter prompting unprecedented interventions to rescue critically endangered handfish from Tasmanian waters. Whilst there are similarities between heat stress distributions during both summers, no two El Niño events are the same. Regional marine heatwave forecasts will provide more information as we head into summer to the likely location, timing and magnitude of heat stress in Australian waters, informing operational decision-making and response.
Since the 2023-24 summer, multiple state-based and industry marine heatwave response plans have been developed. Operational long-range marine heatwave forecasts are now publicly available, and a regular cadence of summer briefings has been established in the past three years, providing both information and building community across marine sectors. Industry groups have run preparedness workshops ahead of the past two summers and general awareness of marine heatwave impacts has significantly increased. However, there is an ongoing need to consolidate and scale these efforts into consistent, long-term preparedness, integrate marine heatwave adaptation into policy, governance and industry practice. Australia is world leading in terms of marine heatwave prediction and response, but this summer will be both a challenge and an opportunity... how prepared are we?