The Pacific 'Blob'

A massive, stationary blob of warm water has been lingering off the coast of Pacific Northwest USA, extends past Canada's BC North Coast, and has pushed up into Alaska.

Skipjack Tuna off Alaska's Copper River and Olive Sea Turtles off Prince Rupert, BC. Things are gonna get weird (rare species, squirrelly weather, salmon?) for a while...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Blob_(Pacific_Ocean)

When this has happened in the past we see large sun fish, sea turtles and schools of tuna off the coast of Sitka. The tuna fishing can be great.

This ones different though, in that it's not a seasonal El Nino event...it's been there since 2013.

Alaskans for global warming! Our goal? Return Alaska to the tropical paradise it was 10,000 years ago!

Alaskan Sea-Duction said:

Alaskans for global warming! Our goal? Return Alaska to the tropical paradise it was 10,000 years ago!

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Ummm...10,000 years ago the ice sheets were still melting

Well I was guesstamating.....


I flew over the inside passage on Sunday on my way back from Alaska and could identify different areas cause I have been looking at way to many maps. Can't wait to get up there next spring.

MurrayM said:

Ummm...10,000 years ago the ice sheets were still melting

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...and that wasn't human caused either!

Alaskan Sea-Duction said:

I flew over the inside passage on Sunday on my way back from Alaska and could identify different areas cause I have been looking at way to many maps. Can't wait to get up there next spring.

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Saw Savary Island from a jet when I was a kid, and just had to visit it when we sea kayaked the coast about 15 years later. It was singularly exotic, just as suspected. Basically it's an arbutus and forest covered sand dune with palatial log homes, some apparently from the 1930's.

When I fly now it's the heads of looooong channels and inlets which cut into BC's Coast Mountains that call the most.

Here's hoping cold water dependant species don't take too much of a hit if the blob stays put...

FlyWright said:

...and that wasn't human caused either!

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I didn't say or insinuate the 'Blob' was human caused.

If one has an interest in Savary Island they would do well to read Spillsbury's Coast. Spillsbury grew up on Savary in the 1930s or thereabouts and went on to get into the radio manufacturing and sales business and later started a coastal airline. He supplied and serviced many of the communication radios that were used in the logging communities, canneries, etc along the BC coast.

Possibly related to the warmer than normal temperatures offshore;

Toxic algae bloom in Pacific Ocean could be largest ever - CBS News

Re post #5 by Murray.

Did the Queen Charlotte Islands exist 10,000 years ago?

manyboats said:

Re post #5 by Murray.

Did the Queen Charlotte Islands exist 10,000 years ago?

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Actually, I don't think so. There was a level plain between the 'mainland' and the 'islands' during the last ice age. Recent improvements in sonar technology have resulted in discoveries of stone fishing weirs built on river estuaries that now sit at the bottom of Hecate Strait.

Was that a trick question?

MurrayM said:

I didn't say or insinuate the 'Blob' was human caused.

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MurrayM said:

Ummm...10,000 years ago the ice sheets were still melting

Click to expand...

...and that wasn't human caused either!


Clearly, i was referring to the previous Ice Age warming temps, melt, and rising sea levels as noted by my quoted text.

Diversion of Fraser River sockeye through Johnstone Strait is forecast to be an unprecedented 96%. Several years ago Humbolt squid invaded BC waters. We encountered them in our test fisheries. We haven't seen them since. Perhaps they will return this year.


Jim
Sent from my iPad using Trawler Forum

FlyWright said:

Clearly, i was referring to the previous Ice Age warming temps, melt, and rising sea levels as noted by my quoted text.

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Sorry...not so clear at this end...thought you were saying I believed the Blob was human caused.

Humbolt Squid? They're nasty!

MurrayM said:

Sorry...not so clear at this end...thought you were saying I believed the Blob was human caused. ...

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Well, I thought it WAS human. Namely a large politician from Queensland,(a state of) Australia.

This is an interesting note from NMFS on this subject.

http://www.nwfsc.noaa.gov/news/features/food_chain/index.cfm

Not good news.


Jim
Sent from my iPad using Trawler Forum

Greetings,
Has anyone considered Fukoshima radiation as being the cause?

JDCAVE said:

This is an interesting note from NMFS on this subject.

Unusual North Pacific warmth jostles marine food chain - Northwest Fisheries Science Center

Not good news.

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Interesting article. Fits with a Pacific El Nino predicted here, a warmer period with reduced rainfall. Distressing for some farmers who have not got a crop in for 3 years, while some others do well. Despite the prediction, currently we have abundant rain, in rural parts as well as coastal.
I doubt it relates to Fukushima. A cycle of drought and flood is well established since first colonization. World overpopulation is likely contributing to the more extreme events, in my uneducated view.

RT Firefly said:

Greetings,
Has anyone considered Fukoshima radiation as being the cause?

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Only those who wear tin foil hats

MurrayM said:

Ummm...10,000 years ago the ice sheets were still melting

Click to expand...

Humans were able to occupy North America because the western and southern portions of Alaska were warmer then now.

The North American ice sheet was centered on Hudson's Bay and that sheet ice was kept rest of the coastal ranges, though some individual glaciers were larger then today.

As for the blob, we seen to have a tendency to think that just because WE never measured some phenomena before, it's new and therefore human caused.

Hi Bruce.

The pope just said overpopulation has nothing to do with it, now 1.2 billion followers can continue breeding like rabbits free of guilt. lol

Regards.

David.

Manly Q. said:

Hi Bruce.

The pope just said overpopulation has nothing to do with it, now 1.2 billion followers can continue breeding like rabbits free of guilt. lol

Regards.

David.

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I heard that too, and like you, I wondered. He seems much more progressive than some predecessors, I`m hoping it`s early days, but....

Wxx3 said:

Humans were able to occupy North America because the western and southern portions of Alaska were warmer then now.

The North American ice sheet was centered on Hudson's Bay and that sheet ice was kept rest of the coastal ranges, though some individual glaciers were larger then today.

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All the mountains on the north coast of BC under 5,500 feet high are rounded and smooth because they were under ice...all the taller mountains have pointed tops because they were taller than the ice was thick.

Here's an illustration from Vancouver BC's Simon Fraser University (looks like an ice sheet and a wee bit colder than today to me )

It is my understanding that there is an Ice Age every 10.000 years and we are about half way between cycles, so it is understandable if the ice and ice shelfs start to receed.

The Earth is much more dynamic than we uunderstand today.

I am not a Chicken Little and I take the long view on events surrounding climate and weather.

2015 apparently the hottest on record, well records have only been taken for just over 100 yrs so this is such a small sample on which to base records.

Regards.

David.

This warm water event could vary well have happened on a regular basis in the past...would be easy enough to find out by studying ocean sediment core samples for alternating layers of cold and warm water dependant microscopic organisms.

The Earth appears to have self regulating mechanisms which keep it from getting too cold or too hot and naturally oscillates between ice ages and warm periods. We may cause some ripples, but Nature will find balance in the end.

(It's a 100,000 year cycle isn't it?)

Manly Q. said:

It is my understanding that there is an Ice Age every 10.000 years and we are about half way between cycles, so it is understandable if the ice and ice shelfs start to receed.

The Earth is much more dynamic than we uunderstand today.

I am not a Chicken Little and I take the long view on events surrounding climate and weather.

2015 apparently the hottest on record, well records have only been taken for just over 100 yrs so this is such a small sample on which to base records.

Regards.

David.

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Actually, yes AND this is one of the big indications that global warming has broken this cycle.

It does seem obvious to me that without humans we risks probably already be entering the next ice age.

My issue with this whole debate is that we should be thankful that that cycle appears changed, otherwise much of the land used for food production would be under ice.

But having said that, I also don't believe once we got the climate ball rolling in a different direction, we can new change it like a yo yo. That's the definition of hubris.

The debate we should be having is not the size of your car, but how to best desk with a warming Earth.

Wxx3 said:

As for the blob, we seem to have a tendency to think that just because WE never measured some phenomena before, it's new and therefore human caused.

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That's pretty much my view on this climate debate.

I'm getting tired of reporters that seem to think that history started the day they were born. (Example: When reporting on the war in Iraq, the headline might be "23 killed in Iraq today!" My God, did they ever read about the daily fatalities in WWI & II? Or how about the casualties in the Civil War? These "kids" that we are getting our news from are the same ones that yell "fire" in a crowded theater. (Whew!...sorry for the rant.)