News stories this spring are reporting the presence of a large, mysterious, and unusual mass of warm surface water in the Northeast Pacific Ocean that has migrated from offshore Alaska to the western coastline, and stretches from northern B.C. to southern California.

Ocean Network Canada’s Dr. Richard Dewey reported on this anomaly with data from the Folger Passage study site in November 2014.

His new report “Warm Northeast Conditions Continue into 2015” provides further information as to how and why this warm water anomaly may have developed.

For over five years, Ocean Networks Canada cabled observatories have continuously monitored ocean conditions such as temperature, salinity, and oxygen in the Northeast Pacific off southern Vancouver Island and the inland waterways of the Salish Sea.

In a recent two-part CTV Island news story “Changing Tides,” Dewey joined other researchers who have been monitoring this “warm blob” to explain what it is and what impact it might have on west coast marine life.

Related Links:

CTV Vancouver Island News "Changing Tides" Part 1 | Part 2
​NOAA News: West Coast waters shifting to lower-productivity regime