Like its movie namesake, the horrific marine heatwave nicknamed the Blob destroyed much in its path during its peak, causing mass deaths of fish, birds, and many other marine animals, threatening fishing industries.
Since then, the Blob has at least briefly reared its head twice, hinting at an underlying persistence to its cause.
Now, researchers have identified the systematic warming in the Pacific Ocean that fueled the Blob's rise, and their modeling confirms that – as previously suspected – it is not the result of natural climatic variation. "Discovery of the long-term warming pool will now provide us with crucial information on the likelihood of such extreme events in the future,"Barkhordarian and colleagues detected a persistent pool of warmed water in the Northeast Pacific with increased annual mean temperatures of around 0.4 °C per decade. Summer water temperatures now linger for 37 days longer than 20 years ago.
The team also discovered a decline in low clouds – which usually have a cooling effect on the waters below – over this region during the cold season. This strengthens the atmospheric high-pressure systems above the warm water pool during winters. Using multiple models, the team calculated that there is a less than a 5 percent chance this high-pressure system has been unusually strengthened during winter because of natural variation.Their modeling also revealed a less than 1 percent chance the Blob could have formed in 2019 without all the excess greenhouse gasses humansThese findings are backed by
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