The Blob (Pacific Ocean)

The Blob is an anomalous body having sea surface temperature much above normal, seen here in a graphic of April 2014 by the NOAA.

The Blob is a large mass of relatively warm water in the Pacific Ocean off the coast of North America that was first detected in late 2013 and continued to spread throughout 2014 and 2015.[1][2] It is an example of a marine heatwave.[3] Sea surface temperatures indicated that the Blob persisted into 2016,[4] but it was initially thought to have dissipated later that year.

By September 2016, the Blob resurfaced and made itself known to meteorologists.[5] The warm water mass was unusual for open ocean conditions and was considered to have played a role in the formation of the unusual weather conditions experienced along the Pacific coast of North America during the same time period.[1] The warm waters of the Blob were nutrient-poor and adversely affected marine life.[6]

In 2019 another scare was caused by a weaker form of the effect referred as "The Blob 2.0"[7] and in 2021 the appearance of "The Southern Blob" at south of the equator near New Zealand has caused a major effect in South America, particularly Chile and Argentina.[8][9]

  1. ^ a b Morin, Monte (24 April 2015). "Wedge of warm seawater known as 'the blob' blamed for marine havoc". phys.org. Retrieved 27 April 2015.
  2. ^ NASA Earth Observatory (16 February 2016). "The Demise of the Warm Blob". Retrieved 29 June 2016.
  3. ^ Holser, Rachel R.; Keates, Theresa R.; Costa, Daniel P.; Edwards, Christopher A. (July 2022). "Extent and Magnitude of Subsurface Anomalies During the Northeast Pacific Blob as Measured by Animal-Borne Sensors". Journal of Geophysical Research: Oceans. 127 (7). Bibcode:2022JGRC..12718356H. doi:10.1029/2021JC018356. S2CID 250301287.
  4. ^ Thoman, Rick (19 May 2016). "The Blob Lives: Update from Rick Thoman". Alaska Ocean Observing System. Retrieved 21 May 2016.
  5. ^ Belles, Johnathan (21 September 2016). "The Blob is Back: Anomalous Warmth Returns to the North Pacific Ocean". The Weather Channel. Retrieved 30 April 2017.
  6. ^ Innis, Michelle (10 April 2016). "Climate-Related Death of Coral Around World Alarms Scientists". The New York Times.
  7. ^ Amaya, Dillon J.; Miller, Arthur J.; Xie, Shang-Ping; Kosaka, Yu (20 April 2020). "Physical drivers of the summer 2019 North Pacific marine heatwave". Nature Communications. 11 (1): 1903. Bibcode:2020NatCo..11.1903A. doi:10.1038/s41467-020-15820-w. PMC 7171163. PMID 32313028.
  8. ^ Garreaud, René D.; Clem, Kyle; Veloso, José Vicencio (September 2021). "The South Pacific Pressure Trend Dipole and the Southern Blob". Journal of Climate. 34 (18): 7661–7676. Bibcode:2021JCli...34.7661G. doi:10.1175/JCLI-D-20-0886.1. S2CID 237660720.
  9. ^ Yeung, Jessie (27 August 2021). "'Southern Blob' of hot ocean is causing a megadrought thousands of miles away in Chile". CNN.