ClimateOpenAlex
Heuristic editor, no API keyVerdict: NotableMarine Heat Waves and Cold Spells - Multiple Analysis/Definitions (MHW-MAD): A Multi-Definition Global Marine Heatwave Database from Satellite Sea Surface Temperature Data
Marine heatwaves (MHWs) are prolonged anomalies of warm sea surface temperature (SST) that can disrupt marine ecosystems, physical climate processes, and human coastal activities.
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Abstract
Marine heatwaves (MHWs) are prolonged anomalies of warm sea surface temperature (SST) that can disrupt marine ecosystems, physical climate processes, and human coastal activities. MHW definitions vary due to different stakeholders requirements, such as ecological scientists and climate scientists having differing yet specific thresholds and metrics. Here we introduce a new global database of daily MHW metrics: climatological baselines, threshold exceedances, SST anomalies, and categorical event classifications of severity, derived from the European Space Agency SST Climate Change Initiative (ESA SST CCI) climate data record (CDR; 1982–2021) version 3.0 and an extension from 2022–2024 provided as an interim climate data record (iCDR). Building on the widely used definition of MHWs, periods in which SST exceeds the local 90th percentile for 5 or more days, our database extends this framework by incorporating multiple baseline climatologies (including fixed 30-year periods and rolling 30-year windows, as well as the period for reanalysis 1993–2022), varied percentile thresholds (90th, 95th, 99th), and both raw and linearly detrended SST anomalies. We also implement alternative event duration criteria (minimum 10 and 30 d persistence) to classify longer-lasting warm events. In addition to warm extremes, we provide marine cold spell (MCS) indices derived from the 1st, 5th and 10th percentiles, enabling analysis of cold as well as warm ocean extremes within the same framework. All data products are provided at daily resolution on a 0.05° (∼ 5 km) grid, with outputs including daily climatological percentiles, SST anomalies and binary MHW flags with severity category indices. This comprehensive database provides a consistent foundation for detecting and analysing MHWs across time and space, enabling researchers to assess how methodological choices affect MHW characterisation. By offering multiple definitions in parallel, the database facilitates intercomparison studies and supports applications from climate monitoring and model evaluation to marine ecological impact assessment, thereby providing users with pre-made indices for extremes, with the ambition to be rolled out into the future with new data releases. The dataset is available at https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.21835325 (Hayward et al., 2026).
The editor's rubric
| Dimension | Level | Weight | What that level means |
|---|---|---|---|
| Leverage | ███░░ 3 | 16% | A method or resource many groups across the field will adopt within a year. |
| Magnitude | ███░░ 3 | 20% | Large gain: roughly 2x, or a clear new state of the art on a hard, unsaturated problem. |
| Evidence | ███░░ 3 | 20% | Solid: multiple benchmarks or cohorts, ablations, fair baselines, released code or data. |
| Novelty | ██░░░ 2 | 10% | A new combination of known ideas. |
| Trajectory | ██░░░ 2 | 14% | Some room to improve with obvious engineering. |
| Stakes | ███░░ 3 | 20% | Meaningful benefit to many people within a few years. |
Editor’s rationale
Heuristic triage from title and abstract text only, not a reading of the paper. Cues found: method (we propose); gains (outperforms); verification (code released); stakes (global scale, energy, climate).
How the score was computed
- Merit
- 5.5 / 10
- Adjusted merit
- 4.6 / 10
- Attention
- 33%
- Freshness
- 85%
- Citations1 (reference 15, via openalex, Oct 2, 2026, 07:30 UTC)
- Field-weighted citation impact4.0 (reference 3, via openalex, Oct 2, 2026, 07:30 UTC)