“The Blob” – it may naturally conjure images from the 1958 horror film in which a big mass of alien goo that resembles a ball of raspberry jam comes to Earth and engulfs everything it touches. But the blob we’re talking about here isn’t an alien; it’s actually a massive area in the Pacific Ocean that is currently experiencing unusually high water temperatures. While dipping into warmer waters on vacation may sound great, it can cause complete havoc for marine ecosystems and much of the life that calls it home.
What is The Blob?
The Blob is, technically speaking, a marine heatwave. These happen all over the world. While a variety of factors can contribute to a marine heatwave, the Blob in the Pacific is due to atmospheric pressure changes that decrease winds that would normally mix the ocean.
The ocean is broken into layers, with the top layers being the warmest, and the deeper layers being colder, generally saltier, and full of nutrients. Wind will blow the warmer water away allowing the deeper cooler water to take its place, bringing those much-needed nutrients to the surface layer. This process is known as “upwelling.” This not only helps regulate water temperatures, but by bringing nutrients to the surface, it essentially fertilizes the water, giving tiny ocean plants – called phytoplankton – the food the plants need to survive, create oxygen, and feed other animals.
For the Blob, this mixing is not happening enough, and the cold waters from the deep are no longer able to cool the other ocean layers. From 2014-2016, the Blob became the largest marine heat wave on record for the North Pacific and extended more than 1,000 feet below the surface of the water. And with climate change, scientists predict that our oceans will experience more frequent and more intense marine heatwaves.
Why Do Heatwaves Matter?
Why does this even matter? While no marine heatwave is exactly alike, they can wreak havoc on entire ecosystems through three major impacts: by stressing marine life and shifting their habitats, by causing massive die-offs, and by triggering harmful algal blooms.
Impacts: Shifting Habitats
Most marine species, just like humans, are very sensitive to temperature. A lot of life in the ocean is adapted to living in certain conditions. When water temperatures change, marine life will attempt to adjust looking for cooler water or prey that has also adjusted to that change, much the same as humans when they days get hot and we turn on the air conditioning.
During the original Blob, a small shrimp-like crustacean called krill was hit particularly hard. Unfortunately, krill is food for a lot of other animals, including (but certainly not limited to), humpback whales. When the krill population dropped during the previous Blob, humpback whales sought out other food sources, like anchovies, that swim closer to the coastline and closer to commercial fishing operations. An alarming amount of those whales ended up entangled in commercial fishing gear. Many of which, ultimately died from their entanglement injuries. Luckily, there are solutions, like on-demand gear, that can help reduce entanglements.
Impacts: Massive Die-Offs
Marine heatwaves can put a major squeeze on marine food chains. When waters warm up, fish require more energy. You may remember back from grade school lessons that fish are cold-blooded, which means their body temperatures match their surroundings. So, if the temps are hotter, their metabolism speeds up, meaning they need more energy to support basic functions like swimming, growing, and reproducing.To compensate for the extra energy, fish must eat more food. So as some important species are dying off, others require more than normal amounts of food, which essentially causes a food shortage for fish and other ocean life. This can be catastrophic for fisheries management and coastal communities that rely on healthy fish populations for their survival or livelihoods.
The impacts were visible in the previous Blob event. Fishers were hauling in nets with very skinny fish. And starving sea lion and seal pups were left to fend for themselves as mothers had to spend more time at sea trying to track down enough food. And up and down the coasts, sea birds were dying of starvation. Scientists estimate close to one million seabirds died. A sad impact we have already begun to witness with this current Blob.
Impacts: Harmful Algal Blooms
In a normal ocean ecosystem, algae is a good thing. These tiny marine plants provide food and oxygen we all breathe. However, sometimes algae, especially during marine heatwaves, can also cause destructive and dangerous algal blooms. These blooms occur when certain types of algae grow uncontrollably and produce toxins that when ingested can impact humans, fish, shellfish, marine mammals, and birds. Algal blooms happen all over the world and the cause of them is not entirely known, but experts recently found that the Blob heatwave likely contributed to the problems found with algal blooms along Pacific coastlines.
Algal blooms can cause an array of challenges for coastal communities, including the closure of fisheries, lost jobs, humans getting shellfish poisoning, and marine life dying. In 2015 alone, fishers from the closed Dungeness crab fishery lost an estimated $97.5 million worth of landings due to algal blooms. Meanwhile, marine mammals washed on shore showing signs of major neurotoxicity impacting their nervous systems causing seizures, loss of balance, miscarriages, head bobbing, and erratic behavior for which there is no treatment.
How You Can Help
Understanding and predicting the effects of the Blob and other oceanographic phenomena is critically important to avoid and mitigate their effects on the oceans and marine wildlife.
Thanks to systems like Ocean Observatories Initiative, we have ocean conditions data from more than 900 instruments in the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans that span over a decade. This data can track ocean circulation, marine ecosystems, and ocean temperatures among other things. Scientists use this data to compare present conditions to a baseline average and when sea surface temperatures exceed 90% of typical regional temperature, it is considered a marine heatwave.
Recently, the Trump administration ordered ocean observing devices from Ocean Observatories Initiative to be removed from waters off Oregon, Washington, Alaska, North Carolina and Greenland by 2027. This is the latest in a string of cuts to agencies including significant cuts to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) budget, building on previous cuts that have made it harder for the agency to carry out its mission. But thanks to thousands of concerned people, Congress stepped in and the government has agreed to save this important ocean monitoring tool.
But the threats to ocean science remain and the Trump administration has proposed widespread deep cuts to ocean science. Tell Congress that we need a fully funded, staffed, and resourced NOAA to understand, respond, and manage the impacts of harmful marine heatwaves on our waters, coastal communities, and the economies that depend on healthy oceans.
