© NOAA
Roughly five years ago, a huge patch of unusually warm ocean water appeared off the coast of North America, stretching from Mexico's Baja California Peninsula all the way up to Alaska.
It was nicknamed the Blob, after a horror film monster that consumes everything in sight. The heatwave, which lasted for several years, was an equally indiscriminate killer.
According to estimates, during this time the southern coast of Alaska lost more than 100 million Pacific cod. Thousands of seabirds were found washed up on the shore, and about half a million were decimated in total. In one year alone, populations of humpback whales dropped by 30 percent. Salmon, sea lions, krill, and other marine animals also vanished in astonishing numbers, as toxic algae bloomed.
The Blob caused ecosystems and industries alike immense losses - so much so that researchers from the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) are now closely tracking these events.
The current heatwave, they say, has not only popped up in the same area, it's grown in much the same way and is almost the same size.
Side by side, a comparison of both their early stages is ominous. Like the blob, the current marine heat wave emerged only a few months ago, as the winds that cool the ocean's surface began to die down.
"Given the magnitude of what we saw last time, we want to know if this evolves on a similar path," says marine ecologist Chris Harvey from the Northwest Fisheries Science Center.
Comment: See also: