Pacific Ocean Blob Has Returned: Heat And Size Will Match Or Exceed 2014-16 Predecessor

“The Blob” is back in the Pacific Ocean. The original Blob was a vast expanse of unusually warm water in the northeast Pacific that persisted from 2014 to mid-2016. (The unusual moniker came about because the marine heatwave appeared as a giant red blob on ocean surface temperature maps.) It eventually stretched all the way from the Gulf of Alaska to the coast of Mexico and had a number of adverse effects, contributing to a global coral bleaching event and impacting coastal salmon fisheries.

The new Blob resembles the first in extent and location, according to the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), which reported on September 5 that the current marine heat wave in the northern Pacific is already the second-largest recorded in the past 40 years, behind only the 2014-2016 Blob.

Like its predecessor, the new Blob might already be contributing to coral bleaching, which occurs when coral polyps expel algae that live inside their tissues in response to stressors like warmer water temperatures. “Ocean temperatures are extremely warm right now across the main Hawaiian Islands,” NOAA scientist Jamison Gove said in a statement. “They’re up to 3.5°F warmer than what we typically experience this time of year. If the ocean continues to warm even further as predicted, we are likely to witness a repeat of unprecedented bleaching events in 2014 and 2015.”

The current northeast Pacific heatwave is “on a trajectory to be as strong as the prior event,” Andrew Leising, a research scientist at NOAA Fisheries’ Southwest Fisheries Science Center in La Jolla, California, said in a statement. “Already, on its own, it is one of the most significant events that we’ve seen.”


Sea surface temperature anomaly maps show temperatures above normal in orange and red. Credit: NOAA.

EDIT

https://news.mongabay.com/2019/09/the-blob-is-back-pacific-heat-wave-already-second-largest-in-recent-history/