Temperatures across a large part of the North Pacific have reached an all-time high at nearly 2.5 C above the pre-industrial average.
“This blob is a couple of degrees warmer than what we would expect for this particular time of year,” Christopher Harley, a professor of marine ecology at the University of British Columbia, said.
“But it qualifies as being, you know, it’s sort of a one in 10 chance that it would be this warm if you just looked at all the temperatures. So it’s unusual enough to qualify as what’s called a marine heat wave.”
According to the independent environmental organization, Berkeley Earth, the affected area extends from the east coast of Asia to the west coast of North America — known as ‘the blob.’
“It almost worries me that I’m not in more of a state of agitation about this, just because these are becoming more frequent, and when they are happening, they are more severe,” Harley said.
“I hate to say it, it’s the new normal and I’m starting to get used to it.”
Harley said this region experienced a blob 10 years ago, which lasted for a couple of years and covered most of the northeastern Pacific Ocean.
So far, this blob has lasted a few months and while it is a little bit more offshore than the previous one, it is still close enough to affect some of the marine life off the coast of Vancouver Island.
Harley said the blob 10 years ago affected B.C.’s glass sponge reefs, a rare and very vulnerable ecosystem.
“We are worried about things like glass sponge reefs that can only handle another degree of warming before they start to become pretty unhappy,” he added.
“A lot of the impacts on kelp may have happened already, but won’t show up until next spring, when you’d expect a lush recruitment of kelp and we’ll see if that happens or not.”
The blob also impacts weather patterns.
“It was shown that the warming from the atmosphere blowing onto shore from that blob did tend to warm the Pacific Northwest during that period,” Bill Merryfield with Environment and Climate Change Canada said.
It is also suspected to be another La Niña, so B.C. could be in store for a wet winter.
“It’s usually a pretty good bet — La Niña means a longer snow season than an El Niño winter,” Merryfield said.