The California Current Marine Heatwave Tracker - Blobtracker

What is a marine heatwave?

Marine heatwaves, or MHWs, occur when ocean temperatures are much warmer than usual for an extended period of time; they are specifically defined by differences in expected temperatures for the location and time of year.1 MHWs are a growing field of study worldwide because of their effects on ecosystem structure, biodiversity, and regional economies.

In 2014 a large MHW was identified as it began dominating the northeast Pacific Ocean. Eventually known as “the blob” (Fig. 3A.), this basin-scale MHW was unique in the history of monitoring in the California Current, and persisted until mid-2016. Researchers documented many ecological effects associated with the blob, including unprecedented harmful algal blooms, shifting distributions of marine life, and changes in the marine food web.

Large marine heatwaves have occurred each of the last three years (2019, 2020, and 2021), all typically beginning during the spring in the far offshore region of the open North Pacific, impacting the US west coast during the fall, and finally terminating during late winter. These heatwaves were the 3rd, 2nd, and 7th largest heatwaves, respectively, on record for the eastern North Pacific since monitoring began in 1982 (calculated only within the analyzed region shown in Fig. 2; note some of these heatwaves were likely larger as they extended beyond the borders of this prescribed region at various times). The most recent event, marine heatwave NEP21A, which began in April 2021 and reached a maximum size of approximately 4.5 million km2 in early September 2021, fell below the area threshold (400,000 km^2) for large marine heatwave classification on Dec 22, 2021 (Fig. 4B). NEP21A lasted 236 days, qualifying it as the 6th longest heatwave on record. View an animation of marine heatwave development during 2020.

To further investigate past MHW events, access this table of detailed information (i.e., size, duration, distance from shore) or yearly animations. 

What are the latest conditions?

(last updated 3/20/2023)

We continue to track large marine heatwave (LMH) NEP22A that formed in late January 2022 and continues through March 2023. Unlike heatwaves of the past several years, which typically disperse and fall below our tracking threshold during January-March, NEP22A instead has remained above our strength and area thresholds over 400 days, making it the 2rd longest and 4th largest marine heatwave in this region since 1982, when satellite monitoring data became available. From its maximum extent in Aug 2022 (Fig. 3b), NEP22A has remained extant yet variable, with a period of contraction during fall 2022 (Fig. 4b), followed by expansion into January 2023 (approximately 4 million km^2), another contraction until about mid Feb 2023, and yet another slow expansion to its current state.

A brief summary of 2022 heatwave history: NEP22A developed on Jan 18th, 2022 when it first exceeded our LMH size threshold (>400,000 km^2 in area for an individual event). By mid-February 2022, NEP22A had already reached an area of ~3 million km^2 (*Note: actual sizes may be larger than reported here as we are only considering the region bounded in Figure 2 for all presented analyses). Similar to previous years, this heatwave arose in the general offshore region where the previous year’s heatwave (NEP21A) terminated, and within 30 days of the end of that previous event. Thus, it is likely that the region may have had some residual warm waters which preconditioned the region for this new heatwave development. 

NEP22A remained mostly outside of the US EEZ (blue dashed line in Fig. 2) until Mid-May 2022, when there were major reversals in the typical southern pattern of winds which drive upwelling along the coast (view these winds here), most notably during May 5-19, May 22-28, and June 3-11. During these periods, NEP22A reached large portions of the central US west coast  EEZ (regions 3 and 4 in Fig. 5), and up to 50% of some regions were in heatwave status during parts of May and June. After only a brief period of upwelling in late July, this heatwave or its offshoots resided fairly close to shore for most of August-October 2022 and encompassed much of the coastline, although small patches of cool water remained in various locations and times due to local upwelling (Figure 4). 

The current heatwave forecast suggests that NEP2022A will continue in the offshore waters through this summer.  We will continue to monitor the area, duration, and coastal proximity of surface water temperatures for these features in the northeast Pacific and communicate with other researchers and policy-makers to understand the array of possible west coast impacts.

Animations and images of past years' developing heatwaves can be found here: NEP20B animation; NEP19 archived images.

View new and ongoing analyses highlighting regional conditions associated with individual west coast National Marine Sanctuaries and states (Washington, Oregon, and northern, central, and southern California).

What is the MHW Tracker?

Developed by oceanographers from NOAA Fisheries’ Southwest Fisheries Science Center as an experimental tool for natural resource managers, the California Current MHW Tracker is a program designed to understand, describe, and provide a historical context for the 2014-16 blob.2 It also produces a range of indices that could help forecast or predict future MHWs expected to impact our coast.

Because the blob dramatically affected natural resources, including economically valuable fisheries, predictive forecasts will help natural resource managers, businesses, and coastal communities anticipate changes and mitigate possible damages in the future.

The California Current MHW Tracker automatically analyzes sea surface temperature anomalies (SSTa) from 1984- present, with a particular focus on detecting the presence of significant ”blob-class” events. Sea surface temperature (SST) data were obtained from a variety of different platforms (satellites, ships, buoys) on a regular global grid at a resolution of 1/4°.

We found that blob-class MHWs can be classified based on their strength (>1.29 times the standard deviation of the SSTa field; e.g., the top 90% of the data), along with their areal extent, and duration. The original 2014-16 blob had contiguous patches which lasted more than six months and were >4,500,000 km2 in area. Based on our thresholding criteria, we suggest that the MHWs most likely to cause impacts to the west coast will be roughly 3 x the area of Alaska, come within 250 km of the coast, and last at least three months.

Project leads

Andrew Leising and Steven Bograd (SWFSC)