HEAT WAVE KILLED MARINE WILDLIFE MASSE PATCH

As a result, the gulf remained unusually warm through the following year.īut it took a convergence of other forces to transform The Blob into a monster. That dampened the churning winds that usually bring colder, deeper water to the surface, as well as transfer heat from the ocean to the atmosphere-much like a bowl of hot soup cooling as a diner blows across it. The ridge helped squelch fierce winter storms that typically sweep the gulf. The Blob was spawned, experts say, by a long-lasting atmospheric ridge of high pressure that formed over the Gulf of Alaska in the fall of 2013. They consulted satellite readings crisscrossed the Pacific on research ships, sometimes dredging the depths with nets picked through the carcasses of birds and whales and huddled over microscopes and lab aquariums. By the end of the century, Bond says, 'The ocean is going to be a much different place.' The Blob beginsĮven as ominous headlines warned of what National Geographic dubbed 'The blob that cooked the Pacific,' researchers scrambled to decipher what was happening. If global warming isn't curbed, scientists warn that the heat waves will become more frequent, larger, more intense, and longerlasting. Already, ominous new warm patches are emerging in the North Pacific Ocean and elsewhere, and researchers are applying what they've learned from The Blob to help guide predictions of how future marine heat waves might unfold. Their interest is not just historical.Īround the world, shifting climate and ocean circulation patterns are causing huge patches of unusually warm water to become more common, researchers have found. Climate scientists and marine biologists, meanwhile, are still putting together the story of what triggered the event, and how it reverberated through ecosystems. Today, 5 years after The Blob appeared, the waters it once gripped have cooled, although fish, bird, and whale numbers have yet to recover. But now, it is 'something we look at and go: ‘Huh, that can happen.'' Once, he didn't think a food shortage would have much effect on adult cod, which, like camels, can harbor energy and go months without eating. The fish 'basically ran out of food,' Barbeaux now believes. Whales failed to arrive in their usual summer waters. The carcasses of tens of thousands of seabirds littered beaches. Small fish and crustaceans hunted by larger animals vanished. Unusual blooms of toxic algae appeared, as did sea creatures typically found closer to the tropics ( see sidebar).

Water temperatures reached 2.5☌ above normal in many places.īy late 2016, the marine heat wave had crashed across ecosystems all along North America's western coast, reshuffling food chains and wreaking havoc. By the summer of 2015, The Blob had more than doubled in size, stretching across more than 4 million square kilometers of ocean, from Mexico's Baja California Peninsula to Alaska's Aleutian Islands. The name, with its echo of a 1958 horror film about an alien life form that keeps growing as it consumes everything in its path, quickly caught on. A few months later, Nick Bond, a climate scientist at the University of Washington in Seattle, dubbed it The Blob.

HEAT WAVE KILLED MARINE WILDLIFE MASSE PATCH

In late 2013, a huge patch of unusually warm ocean water, roughly one-third the size of the contiguous United States, formed in the Gulf of Alaska and began to spread. And as the vast scale of the disappearance became clear, a prime suspect emerged: 'The Blob.' There was no evidence that the fish had simply moved elsewhere. The data, collected by research trawlers, indicated cod numbers had plunged by 70% in 2 years, essentially erasing a fishery worth $100 million annually. Within hours, however, Barbeaux's colleagues at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) in Seattle, Washington, had confirmed the numbers. How else could more than 100 million Pacific cod suddenly vanish from the waters off of southern Alaska? When marine biologist Steve Barbeaux first saw the data in late 2017, he thought it was the result of a computer glitch.

Heat wave killed marine wildlife masse