Pacific ‘blob’ is changing weather patterns

EarthSky

Pacific ‘blob’ is changing weather patterns
May 18, 2015
by EarthSky Voices in Blogs » Earth, Science Wire

What does this year’s odd U.S. weather have in common with a huge spike in hungry, stranded sea lion pups on California shores? Both are linked to a giant patch of warm ocean water.

Animal rescue centers in California are being inundated with stranded, starving sea lion pups, raising the possibility that the facilities could soon be overwhelmed, the federal agency coordinating the rescue said.

By Nicholas A Bond, University of Washington

People living across the US have lived through some odd weather in the past year. It’s been unusually warm and dry in the western US, while the East had a very cold and snowy winter. Meanwhile, scientists have been seeing Pacific marine species in places they’re not normally found and a huge spike in hungry, stranded sea lion pups on California shores.

All these phenomena are linked to a giant patch of remarkably warm water off the West Coast in the northeast Pacific Ocean called “the blob,” a term I coined when we first started to notice it during the fall of 2013 and winter of 2014.

This piece summarizes the mechanisms responsible for the blob, enumerates some of its direct and indirect impacts, and discusses the opportunity provided by this climate event.

Better understanding the blob is important not only to predicting weather and its impact on ecosystems but also because it can provide insight into the effects we could see from warmer ocean waters in the future.

Blob 101

The development of the blob of unusually warm water can be attributed largely to an unusual weather pattern that set up shop over a large region extending from the North Pacific Ocean across North America from October 2013 into February 2014.

This pattern featured a strong and long-lasting weather pattern with higher-than-normal pressure – called a ridge – over the ocean centered offshore of the Pacific Northwest. This ridge of high pressure reduced the number and intensity of storms making landfall, leading to reduced precipitation west of the Continental Divide compared to seasonal norms.

The ridge also had profound effects on the weather farther east. Specifically, it often acted to divert cold, Canadian air into the middle and eastern sections of the US, with the Great Lakes region being hit especially hard.

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