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Sea lion pups were just one of the many types of wildlife to suffer when a large marine heatwave that became known as "The Blob" took hold in the Pacific Ocean off the West Coast. Credit: NMFS
This data image shows the monthly average sea surface temperature for May 2015, the peak of the marine heat wave dubbed The Blob. Credit: NASA Physical Oceanography Distributed Active Archive Center
The North Pacific has warmed significantly faster than any other ocean basin on Earth since 2013, enduring two major marine heat waves in five years that had devastating effects on marine mammals, seabirds, as well as fisheries and the communities that rely on them.
Oceanographers are asking "What’s going on in the North Pacific?"
"How long will sea surface temperatures continue to increase at the rate they have?" asked Michael McPhaden, senior scientist at NOAA's Pacific Marine Environmental Laboratory. "And what will the consequences be? Understanding the underlying physical processes better and developing ways to skillfully forecast the future evolution of this trend are really important."
In a new paper published in Nature Climate Change, McPhaden and a team of researchers from NOAA's Climate Prediction Center and... more
PMEL in the News
Scientists are increasingly concerned that the world’s oceans are approaching the limits of their capacity to absorb heat.
Mostly inoperable since 2020, moored sensors are key to understanding global climate patterns.
Scorching heat across five continents set 1,400 records this week and showed how human-caused global warming has made catastrophic temperatures commonplace.
Feature Publication
(a) Long-term averages (1998-2022) of surface ocean CO2 fugacity observations from SOCATv2023, binned into 0.25° × 0.25° monthly grid cells, which are used in the development of RFR-LMEs. (b-d) Long-term averages (1998-2022) of monthly RFR-LME maps of surface ocean (b) CO2 partial pressure, (c) pH on the total scale, and (d) calcium carbonate saturation state with respect to aragonite.
Humans generate about 36 billion tons of carbon dioxide pollution every year, about 30 percent of which are absorbed by the oceans. While that means there's less carbon dioxide (CO2) heating the atmosphere, the result is that the chemistry of the ocean is changing in profound and damaging ways, especially for marine organisms that grow hard shells.
Now, scientists from NOAA... more