A sub-regional scale look at climate extremes in the context of a marine ecosystem

Two challenges that face any attempt to connect climate extremes to resulting ecological impacts are defining what constitutes a relevant “extreme”, and identifying the most appropriate climatic scales at which to resolve the “extreme” in order to capture important signals. This research looks at the spatial and temporal behavior of a variety of extreme climate variables that may result in ecosystem impacts at the scale of the South Florida Reef Tract and demonstrates that an assumption of regional coherence in the behavior of these variables is not always appropriate.