Pacific "Marine Heat Wave" Threatens Wildlife, Alters Weather, Is Sign Of Climate Change

Temperatures are far above normal in almost all of
the North Pacific from Asia to the North American
west coast. It's altering weather patterns over
a wide area. 

The entire northern Pacific Ocean is insanely warm, and its gobsmacking scientists, screwing up the environment and weather patterns and is increasing worries about climate change.  

 As CNN reports:

"A record-breaking and astonishingly expansive marine heat wave is underway in the Pacific Ocean, stretching about 5,000 miles from the water around Japan to the West Coast of the United States. 

The abnormal warm 'blob' of ocean water, which is getting a significant boost from human-caused global warming, is affecting the weather on land and could have ripple effects on marine life."

Water temperature in the north Pacific in August were the hottest on record.

The hot water has already contributed to making summer, 2025 the hottest on record in Japan. Lately, the warm water, combined with the remnants of tropical systems that originated off the coast of Mexico, has made California weather weird. 

It's been strangely humid off and on in the Golden State, with afternoon showers and thunderstorms. It's weather you'd expect in places like Georgia or Louisiana, not California. 

When the winter storm season comes on the West Coast, the hot water could intensify the atmospheric rivers that occasionally come ashore anywhere from southeast Alaska and British Columbia all the way down to southern California. 

The added ocean heat could add moisture to the already sopping wet atmospheric rivers, increasing the chances of flooding. 

This isn't the first time there have been one of these big Pacific Ocean marine heat waves. They've been  hitting with increasing frequency and strength for more than a decade now. 

CNN again:

"As climate change causes more heat to be stored in the oceans, ocean temperatures are reaching new heights that could lead to more significant impacts from heat waves like this. 

The North Pacific warmed at the fastest rate of any ocean basin on Earth during the past decade, according to Michael McPhaden, a senior scientist at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration."

These Pacific marine heat waves had huge effects on wildlife. Nearly one million common murries, died of starvation because the the warm water altered the food supply.  This was the largest known bird species die off on record. Other marine animals, such as  tufted puffins, sea lions and baleen whales. 

Marine heat waves are becoming more common everywhere in the world. According to a study in Nature, between 1925 and 2016 there was a 54 percent increase in annual marine heat wave days around the world.

Since climate change is making these marine heat waves worse and more frequent, these wildlife deaths paint an ominous picture of the future. 

As for the current Pacific marine heat wave,  it's possible the heat in the Pacific might be having an effect on overall atmospheric patterns. Nobody is yet sure, but the very dry, generally warm conditions that have put us here in Vermont into a deep drought might be partly related to the Pacific Ocean heat. 

It could also affect wintertime weather patterns. An intense marine heat wave in the Pacific messed with the jet stream during the winters of 2013-14 and 2014-15. 

The hot Pacific water created a northward bulge in the jet stream in western North America, and that, in turn caused a serious southward dip in that jet stream into the middle and eastern parts of the United States.

Both winters were intensely cold in the Northeast and much of the Midwest, contrasting with the overall warming trend over the past few decades in those location. 

According to Accuweather Lead Long Range Forecaster Paul Pasterlok, the northern branch of the jet stream during a La Nina tends to bring fast moving, not so intense storms to the East, which tends to produce modest snowfalls and temperatures close to normal. 

Here in Vermont, we had our fourth coldest March in 2014 and our third coldest February in 2015. Boston had by far its snowiest winter on record in 2015.

Something similar could happen this winter, but before you panic over heating bills and snow-blocked roads, a cold winter is definitely far from a guarantee this year.

First of all, other atmospheric circulations will need to roughly match those cold winters of 2014 and 2015 to give us a repeat. That might not happen. Second, there's no guarantee the Pacific Ocean heat will last. 

In 2013 to 2016, the weird heat in the northeast Pacific, off the Canadian and U.S. west coasts, extended deep into the water. This year, the ocean heat doesn't go nearly as deep down as it did a decade ago. Normal autumn storms will likely bring cooler water to the surface, since waves won't have to dig deep to find that cooler water. 

Climate change or global warming has often been described as global weirding. The Pacific ocean heat is just one of many examples of that.