One of the most notorious threats to fish and wildlife may be returning to the Oregon Coast. Wochit



Federal scientists said Thursday that another warm-water heatwave in the Pacific Ocean, similar to "The Blob" of 2014 and '15, is forming and could bring major concerns for the state's fish and wildlife. 

The original Blob, which formed in September of 2014, brought wide-ranging impacts that included shutting down crabbing and clamming, stranding thousands of sea lions on beaches and deeply harming Oregon salmon and steelhead runs.

Now, a similar expanse of warm water is building. 

“It’s on a trajectory to be as strong as the prior event,” said Andrew Leising, a research scientist at the NOAA Fisheries Science Center in La Jolla, California. “Already, on its own, it is one of the most significant events that we’ve seen.”

The cause of the heatwave is weaker than normal winds over a broad area of the ocean, scientists said in a conference call. That's led to water temperatures 5 to 6 degrees above normal. 

The size of the impacted area is currently 6.5 million square kilometers — stretching from Hawaii to Southern California and up to Oregon, Washington and British Columbia. The original Blob was roughly 7.8 million square kilometers. 

The Blob could be broken up at any time, officials said, by a return to normal weather patterns over the ocean. But if it stays in place, it could mean major problems for fishing and wildlife the length of the West Coast. 

How could this harm Oregon's fish and wildlife? 

Excessively warm water impacts fish and wildlife in a number of ways, officials said. 

It disrupts the ocean's food web, leading to less quality food for young salmon and steelhead. Historically poor fish returns followed the last Blob. 

It also brought the largest algal bloom recorded on the West Coast, which shut down crabbing and clamming for months. 

“Short story, the marine heat wave is not likely a good thing,” said Bruce McIntosh, deputy fish chief of inland fisheries for the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife. "If it doesn't get broken up, every marine-based fish species would be impacted in a negative way."

It's particularly frustrating, McIntosh said, because it felt as though fish runs were beginning to return to normal after the last Blob. 

"It used to be, a good or bad ocean cycle would last 5 to 15 years, and we could plan for it," he said. "But the old rules have to be basically thrown out the window at this point." 

If the warm water lasts, it leads to odd things happening, such as squid moving up to the Oregon Coast, when they're normally only found on the Central California Coast. 

"We've already seen some of this impact underway," said Nate Mantua, a research scientist at the Southwest Fisheries Science Center. "Overall, it just creates a tough set of circumstances for a number of animals." 

Previous Blob: Steelhead runs plummet to historically low levels on Santiam, Willamette

Will this bring a drought similar to 2015? 

The Blob of 2014 and 2015 was so noteworthy in part because it coincided with one of the hottest and driest years in Oregon history. 

But the new ocean heatwave doesn't necessarily mean a repeat of that type of drought, meteorologists said. 

“Yes, it has an influence, but it doesn’t mean that we’d see anything close to what happened in 2015,” NWS meteorologist Colby Neuman said. “Even sea surface temperatures on a larger scale — like El Nino or La Nina — don’t guarantee we’ll see a specific type of weather because there are so many variables in play.”

And if conditions change, and ocean winds pick up, this heatwave in the Pacific could break up rapidly, officials said.


Previous Blob: Warm ocean water triggered vast seabird die-off, experts say

Blame climate change? 

Scientists said climate change likely played a role in the increased warm water events in the Pacific, although it's sometimes unclear how. 

The long-term warming of the world's oceans, by about 1 degree Celsius, can make this type of heatwave more severe than it normally would have been, said Nick Bond, a research meteorologist with NOAA in Seattle who studied the last Blob closely.

At the same time, the current event is more caused by a shorter-term weather pattern and "connecting human-caused climate change with the behavior of weather like this is not very well understood."   

Actions being considered 

In light of the Pacific heatwave, officials are recommending that preemptive measures are taken.

For example, the last Blob led humpback and other whales feeding closer to shore, NOAA said, and record numbers became entangled in lines from crab traps and other fishing gear.

In response, fisheries managers have already formed working groups to find ways to reduce entanglements.

“There are definitely concerning implications for the ecosystem,” Bond said. “It’s all a matter of how long it lasts and how deep it goes.”


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