A
1,000 Mile Stretch Of The Pacific Ocean Has Heated Up Several Degrees
And Scientists Don’t Know Why
Michael
Snyder
13
April, 2015
According
to two University of Washington scientific research papers that were
recently released, a 1,000 mile stretch of the Pacific Ocean has
warmed up by several degrees, and nobody seems to know why this is
happening.
This
giant “blob” of warm water was first observed in late 2013, and
it is playing havoc with our climate. And since this giant
“blob” first showed up, fish and other sea creatures have been
dying in absolutely massive numbers. So could there be a
connection? And what is going to happen if the Pacific Ocean
continues to warm up? Could we potentially be facing the
greatest holocaust of sea life in the Pacific that anyone has ever
observed? If so, what would that mean for the food chain and
for our food supply?
For
a large portion of the Pacific Ocean to suddenly start significantly
heating up without any known explanation is a really big deal.
The following information about this new research comes from the
University of Washington…
“In the fall of 2013 and early 2014 we started to notice a big, almost circular mass of water that just didn’t cool off as much as it usually did, so by spring of 2014 it was warmer than we had ever seen it for that time of year,” said Nick Bond, a climate scientist at the UW-based Joint Institute for the Study of the Atmosphere and Ocean, a joint research center of the UW and the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
Bond coined the term “the blob” last June in his monthly newsletter as Washington’s state climatologist. He said the huge patch of water – 1,000 miles in each direction and 300 feet deep – had contributed to Washington’s mild 2014 winter and might signal a warmer summer.
It
would be one thing if scientists knew why this was happening and had
an explanation for it.
But
they don’t.
Scientists have been astonished at the extent and especially the long-lasting nature of the warmth, with one NOAA researcher saying, “when you see something like this that’s totally new you have opportunities to learn things you were never expecting.”
The
following map comes from the NOAA, and it shows what this giant
“blob” looks like…
According
to CBS
News,
ocean temperatures inside this blob have risen anywhere from two
to seven degrees
Fahrenheit above normal…
This warm blob, which is about 2 to 7 degrees Fahrenheit (1 to 4 degrees Celsius) warmer than the usual temperature for this region, means the winter air that crosses over the Pacific Ocean wasn’t cooled as much as it normally would be. That, in turn, spelled warmer, dryer conditions for the West Coast.
Meanwhile,
while this has been going on, scientists have also been noticing that
sea creatures in the Pacific have been dying in record numbers.
In
fact, last summer I wrote an article entitled “Why
are massive numbers of sea creatures dying along the west coast right
now?”
Since
then, things have continued to get even worse.
For
instance, it was recently
reported that
the number of sea lions washing up on Southern California beaches is
at an all-time record high…
A record 2,250 sea lions, mostly pups, have washed up starving and stranded on Southern California beaches so far this year, a worsening phenomenon blamed on warming seas in the region that have disrupted the marine mammals’ food supply.
The latest tally, reported on Monday by the National Marine Fisheries Service, is 20 times the level of strandings averaged for the same three-month period over the past decade and twice the number documented in 2013, the previous worst winter season recorded for Southern California sea lions.
And
of course fish are being deeply affected as well. Sardines have
declined to their lowest level in
six decades,
and National
Geographic says
that a whole host of tiny fish species at the bottom of the food
chain are dying off rapidly…
Since the 1950s, researchers every year have dropped nets 1,000 feet (300 meters) down to catalog marine life many miles off California. Most track commercially important species caught by the fishing industry. But J. Anthony Koslow tallies fish often credited with keeping marine systems functioning soundly—tiny midwater bristlemouths, the region’s most abundant marine species, as well as viperfish, hatchetfish, razor-mouthed dragonfish, and even minnow-like lampfish.
All are significant parts of the seafood buffet that supports life in the eastern Pacific, and all are declining dramaticallywith the vertical rise of low-oxygen water.
“If it was a 10 percent change, it wouldn’t have been worth noting, but they’ve declined by 63 percent,” says Koslow, of the Scripps Institution of Oceanography.
So
if the bottom of the food chain is experiencing a catastrophic
collapse, what is that going to mean for the rest of the food chain
in the Pacific Ocean?
In
turn, what is that going to mean for the seafood industry and for the
price of seafood in our grocery stores?
Some
really strange things are happening on the other side of the Pacific
right now as well.
Over
in Japan, the media is buzzing about the recent mass beaching of 150
melon-headed whales. A similar incident was observed just six
days before the great earthquake and tsunami of 2011. The
following comes from the
Japan Times…
The mass beaching of over 150 melon-headed whales on Japan’s shores has fueled fears of a repeat of a seemingly unrelated event in the country — the devastating 2011 earthquake and tsunami that killed over 18,000 people.
Despite a lack of scientific evidence linking the two events, a flurry of online commentators have pointed to the appearance of around 50 melon-headed whales — a species that is a member of the dolphin family — on Japan’s beaches six days before the monster quake, which unleashed towering tsunami and triggered a nuclear disaster.
Very
strange stuff.
For
our entire lives, we have been able to take for granted that our
oceans would always be stable and healthy.
But
now it appears that things may be changing.
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