Is «The Blob» back? New marine heat wave threatens Pacific.

Pedro_P

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In 2017, a marine heat wave bleached this coral reef in Hawaii’s Hanauma Bay. Now, officials are bracing for a new bleaching event driven by unusually warm ocean waters.Ozgur Coskun/Alamy Stock Photo
▼ In the fall of 2014, marine ecologist Jennifer Fisher was stunned when jellyfish and tiny crustaceans typically found in warmer waters filled her nets off the coast of Oregon. The odd catch was just one sign of the arrival of a vast patch of warm water that came to be known as “The Blob”—a massive marine heat wave that lasted 3 years and dramatically disrupted  ecosystems and fisheriesalong North America’s Pacific coast.
Now, with oceanographers warning that a new Blob could be forming in the Pacific Ocean, Fisher is again preparing for strange encounters when she heads out on a research cruise later this month. “This is a very similar situation,” says Fisher, who works at Oregon State University’s Hatfield Marine Science Center in Newport.
This time, however, Fisher and other scientists say they won’t be taken by surprise. They are preparing to more quickly share data on heat wave impacts with each other and with managers who may have to impose new catch limits to protect valuable fisheries. When The Blob arrived 5 years ago, “we didn’t realize the impact” it would have, recalls Toby Garfield, a physical oceanographer with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA’s) Southwest Fisheries Science Center in San Diego, California. “We’re going to stay ahead of this one.”
NOAA scientists first noticed the growth of an eerily familiar patch of warm water in the north Pacific in August. It now covers an area the size of Australia, stretching from the Hawaiian islands to the Gulf of Alaska. Farther north, the Bering Sea between Alaska and Russia is also experiencing a record- setting marine heat wave, triggered by a sweltering summer in 2018 and a lack of winter sea ice.
There are already some signs of potential impacts (▪ ▪ ▪)

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