Climate refugia on the Great Barrier Reef fail when global warming exceeds 3°C.

This is the final version. Available from Wiley via the DOI in this record. DATA AVAILABILITY STATEMENT: These data are available through Zenodo as the data were used in a previous paper (McWhorter et al., 2021), https://zenodo.org/record/5534875#.YnvfQOjMKUm. The code in this study is available by request.Increases in the magnitude, frequency, and duration of warm seawater temperatures are causing mass coral mortality events across the globe. Although, even during the most extensive bleaching events, some reefs escape exposure to severe stress, constituting potential refugia. Here, we identify present-day climate refugia on the Great Barrier Reef (GBR) and project their persistence into the future. To do this, we apply semi-dynamic downscaling to an ensemble of climate projections released for the IPCC's recent sixth Assessment Report. We find that GBR locations experiencing the least thermal stress over the past 20 years have done so because of their oceanographic circumstance, which implies that longer-term persistence of climate refugia is feasible. Specifically, tidal and wind mixing of warm water away from the sea surface appears to provide relief from warming. However, on average this relative advantage only persists until global warming exceeds ~3°C.UKRICooperative Institute for Satellite Earth System Studie

S2P3-R v2.0: computationally efficient modelling of shelf seas on regional to global scales

This is the final version. Available on open access from the European Geosciences Union via the DOI in this recordCode availability: S2P3Rv2.0 is available on GitHub: https://github.com/PaulHalloran/S2P3Rv2.0 (last access: 21 September 2021). The release associated with this paper (https://github.com/PaulHalloran/S2P3Rv2.0/releases/tag/v1.0.1, last access: 21 September 2021​​​​​​​) has been archived on Zenodo with the following DOI: https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.4147559 (Halloran, 2020a). The readme file available on GitHub or via the DOI link provides step-by-step instructions for how to install, set up and run the model, and it provides a basic script for analysing the model output. At the bottom of the readme, a worked example is provided to help the user go through the full process from generating model forcing files, running the model and displaying the output with some example data.Data availability: The model minus satellite SST data from the global (65∘ S–65∘ N) simulation averaged between 2006 and 2016, from which the global validation has been undertaken in this paper, is archived as NetCDF and csv files to allow potential users to undertake bespoke assessment of the model http://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.4018815 (Halloran, 2020b).The marine impacts of climate change on our societies will be largely felt through coastal waters and shelf seas. These impacts involve sectors as diverse as tourism, fisheries and energy production. Projections of future marine climate change come from global models. Modelling at the global scale is required to capture the feedbacks and large-scale transport of physical properties such as heat, which occur within the climate system, but global models currently cannot provide detail in the shelf seas. Version 2 of the regional implementation of the Shelf Sea Physics and Primary Production (S2P3-R v2.0) model bridges the gap between global projections and local shelf-sea impacts. S2P3-R v2.0 is a highly simplified coastal shelf model, computationally efficient enough to be run across the shelf seas of the whole globe. Despite the simplified nature of the model, it can display regional skill comparable to state-of-the-art models, and at the scale of the global (excluding high latitudes) shelf seas it can explain >50 % of the interannual sea surface temperature (SST) variability in ∼60 % of grid cells and >80 % of interannual variability in ∼20 % of grid cells. The model can be run at any resolution for which the input data can be supplied, without expert technical knowledge, and using a modest off-the-shelf computer. The accessibility of S2P3-R v2.0 places it within reach of an array of coastal managers and policy makers, allowing it to be run routinely once set up and evaluated for a region under expert guidance. The computational efficiency and relative scientific simplicity of the tool make it ideally suited to educational applications. S2P3-R v2.0 is set up to be driven directly with output from reanalysis products or daily atmospheric output from climate models such as those which contribute to the sixth phase of the Climate Model Intercomparison Project, making it a valuable tool for semi-dynamical downscaling of climate projections. The updates introduced into version 2.0 of this model are primarily focused around the ability to geographical relocate the model, model usability and speed but also scientific improvements. The value of this model comes from its computational efficiency, which necessitates simplicity. This simplicity leads to several limitations, which are discussed in the context of evaluation at regional and global scales.Natural Environment Research Council (NERC)European Union Horizon 2020NOA

The importance of 1.5°C warming for the Great Barrier Reef

This is the final version. Available on open access from Wiley via the DOI in this recordData and code availability. The data that support the findings of this study are openly available in Zenodo at https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.5534875Tropical coral reefs are among the most sensitive ecosystems to climate change and will benefit from the more ambitious aims of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change’s Paris Agreement, which proposed to limit global warming to 1.5° rather than 2°C above pre-industrial levels. Only in the latest IPCC focussed assessment, the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project phase 6 (CMIP6), have climate models been used to investigate the 1.5° warming scenario directly. Here, we combine the most recent model updates from CMIP6 with a semi-dynamic downscaling to evaluate the difference between the 1.5°C and 2°C global warming targets on coral thermal stress metrics for the Great Barrier Reef. By ~2080, severe bleaching events are expected to occur annually under intensifying emissions (Shared Socioeconomic Pathway SSP5-8.5). Adherence to 2° warming (SSP1-2.6) halves this frequency but the main benefit of confining warming to 1.5° (SSP1-1.9) is that bleaching events are reduced further to 3 events per decade. Attaining low emissions of 1.5° is also paramount to prevent the mean magnitude of thermal stress from stabilizing close to a critical thermal threshold (8 DHW). Thermal stress under the more pessimistic pathways SSP3-7.0 and SSP5-8.5 is 3- to 4-fold higher than present day, with grave implications for future reef ecosystem health. As global warming continues, our projections also indicate more regional warming in the central and southern Great Barrier Reef than the far north and northern Great Barrier Reef.QUEX InstituteNatural Environment Research Council (NERC)Australian Research Council (ARC)NOA

Adult onset asthma and interaction between genes and active tobacco smoking: The GABRIEL consortium.

BACKGROUND: Genome-wide association studies have identified novel genetic associations for asthma, but without taking into account the role of active tobacco smoking. This study aimed to identify novel genes that interact with ever active tobacco smoking in adult onset asthma. METHODS: We performed a genome-wide interaction analysis in six studies participating in the GABRIEL consortium following two meta-analyses approaches based on 1) the overall interaction effect and 2) the genetic effect in subjects with and without smoking exposure. We performed a discovery meta-analysis including 4,057 subjects of European descent and replicated our findings in an independent cohort (LifeLines Cohort Study), including 12,475 subjects. RESULTS: First approach: 50 SNPs were selected based on an overall interaction effect at p<10-4. The most pronounced interaction effect was observed for rs9969775 on chromosome 9 (discovery meta-analysis: ORint = 0.50, p = 7.63*10-5, replication: ORint = 0.65, p = 0.02). Second approach: 35 SNPs were selected based on the overall genetic effect in exposed subjects (p <10-4). The most pronounced genetic effect was observed for rs5011804 on chromosome 12 (discovery meta-analysis ORint = 1.50, p = 1.21*10-4; replication: ORint = 1.40, p = 0.03). CONCLUSIONS: Using two genome-wide interaction approaches, we identified novel polymorphisms in non-annotated intergenic regions on chromosomes 9 and 12, that showed suggestive evidence for interaction with active tobacco smoking in the onset of adult asthma

Climate change impacts on mesophotic regions of the Great Barrier Reef

This is the author accepted manuscript.Climate change projections for coral reefs are founded exclusively on sea surface temperatures (SST). While SST projections are relevant for the shallowest reefs, neglecting ocean stratification overlooks the striking differences in temperature experienced by deeper reefs for all or part of the year. Density stratification creates a buoyancy barrier partitioning the upper and lower parts of the water column. Here, we mechanistically downscale climate models and quantify patterns of stratification above mesophotic corals (depth 30-50 m) of the Great Barrier Reef (GBR). Stratification insulates many offshore regions of the GBR from heatwaves at the surface. However, this protection is lost once global average temperatures exceed ~3°C above pre industrial, after which mesophotic temperatures surpass a recognized threshold of 30°C for coral mortality. Bottom temperatures on the GBR (30-50 m) from 2050-2060 are estimated to increase by ~0.5-1°C under lower climate emissions (SSP1-1.9) and ~1.2-1.7°C under higher climate emissions (SSP5-8.5). In short, mesophotic coral reefs are also threatened by climate change and research might prioritize the sensitivity of such corals to stress.QUEX InstituteNatural Environment Research Council (NERC)Australian Research Council (ARC)Reef Restoration & Adaptation Programme, Australian Governmen