Rubik’s Cube and the Ecological Math Equation
Hmmm, how significant is a 3º change in ocean temperatures?
Wondering why the front end of the winter of 2015/16 has been so mild or why the summer of 2015 was at times unusually cool? Well, it seems you can blame it on The Blob.
No, I am not talking about the cheesy 1958 science fiction/horror movie of that name which featured Steve McQueen battling at giant amoeba from outer space. I am referring to a climatological phenomenon which has been named The Pacific Blob.
The Pacific Blob is an enormous expanse of unusually warm water (3º warmer than usual) in the northern Pacific Ocean, first detected in the autumn of 2013, which is only now starting to dissipate. Climatologist Nicholas Bond is credited with coming up with the rather ironic name.
The Blob started out about 500 miles long and 300 feet deep. It eventually expanded to a stretch of 2,000 miles along the coast of North America from Mexico to Alaska. The Blob has three distinct patches:
The coast of Canada, Washington, Oregon and California in an area known to oceanographers as the Coastal Updwelling Domain
The coast of Alaska and the Bering Sea
The coast of Southern California and Mexico
Oceanographers have pegged the cause of The Blob as lower than normal rates of heat loss from the sea to the atmosphere. They do not know for certain what precipitated this change. But a contributing factor is a persistent region of atmospheric high pressure, over the far northeastern Pacific Ocean, dubbed the Ridiculously Resilient Ridge aka Triple R.
The Triple R phenomenon itself disrupted weather patterns, resulting in the extremely warm and dry conditions in California and the West coast, and contributed to the 2012 – 2015 North American drought.
In addition to spurring unusual weather patterns, The Pacific Blob is having a detrimental effect on marine life. Warm ocean waters are less nutrient rich than cold, upwelling waters resulting in lower levels of zooplankton and a trickle-up effect on the marine food chain. This may sound like scientific mumble-jumble. But the effects are real, including:
Thousands of sea lion pups starving in California leading to forced beachings
Thousands of Cassins Auklets (a small sea bird) in Oregon starving due to lack of food
Reduced Salmon catches as the fish migrate away from the affected area
Think of the natural balance of our world like a Rubik’s Cube. If all the twists and turns work the way in which they were designed, the result is equilibrium. But any disturbance to the intricate relationship of interdependencies changes the sequence of twists and turns. Try as it might, nature cannot find its way back to equilibrium.
Phenomenon like The Pacific Blob and the Triple R do not happen on their own. Something we humans did threw a new twist into the equation. The ecological math no longer works and we are now living with the consequences.
~ Michael Robert Dyet is the author of “Until the Deep Water Stills – An Internet-enhanced Novel” – double winner in the Reader Views Literary Awards 2009. Visit Michael’s website at www.mdyetmetaphor.com or the novel online companion at www.mdyetmetaphor.com/blog .
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