Sea surface temperature temperature pattern is when warm water spreads from the west Pacific and the Indian Ocean to the east Pacific. It takes the rain with it, causing extensive drought in the western Pacific and rainfall in the normally dry eastern Pacific. El Niño's warm rush of nutrient-poor tropical water, heated by its eastward passage in the Equatorial Current, replaces the cold, nutrient-rich surface water of the Humboldt Current. When El Niño conditions last for many months, extensive ocean warming and the reduction in Easterly Trade winds limits upwelling of cold nutrient-rich deep water and its economic impact to local fishing for
The Blob (Pacific Ocean) of Queensland observed the first ever mass bleaching event for Hawaiian coral reefs in 2014, and attributed it to the blob. Research from the University of Washington found positive temperature anomalies in the NE Pacific Ocean (upper ~100 m, greater than 2.5 °C, with temperatures at the coast below normal) for the winter period of 2013–2014. Heat loss from the ocean during the winter time was suppressed. During spring and summer 2014 the warmer sea surface temperature anomalies reached coastal waters. The anomaly may have had a significant effect on the unusually warm summer of 2014, with record high temperatures