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Politics : Formerly About Advanced Micro Devices -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Wharf Rat who wrote (849114)	4/10/2015 7:40:07 PM
From: tejek	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 1574854

'The Blob' Leaves US with Weird Weather, Say Experts By Brian Stallard Apr 10, 2015 04:00 PM EDT It's no secret that North America has seen some pretty odd weather recently. No, it's not nearly as disastrous as some excitable folks on Twitter make it out to be, but it is odd enough for the NOAA and meteorological associations to take notice. Now new research has revealed that a natural phenomenon called "The Blob" might be a primary cause behind this weird weather. "In the fall of 2013 and early 2014 we started to notice a big, almost circular mass of water that just didn't cool off as much as it usually did, so by spring of 2014 it was warmer than we had ever seen it for that time of year," Nick Bond, a climate scientist at the Joint Institute for the Study of the Atmosphere and Ocean, with the University of Washington (UW) and the NOAA, explained in a statement. Bond started calling this mass "The Blob," just last June, after it refused to dissipate even months after it was first noticed. And just like its horror movie namesake, The Blob even started to grow, reaching 1,000 miles in each direction and 300 feet deep. At the time, it was suggested that this unusual patch of warm water was functioning almost like a localized El Niño - contributing to Washington state's mild winter in 2014 and signaling a warmer summer to come. Now, 10 months later, The Blob is still around, just offshore from northern Mexico and reaching 1,000 miles up through Alaskan waters. Its waters remain about 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit) warmer than normal, regardless of the season. However, Bond and his colleagues are arguing that this is not some obscure consequence of climate change. Instead, they say it is a natural abnormality that they are struggling to wrap their heads around. "It wasn't caused by global warming, but it's producing conditions that we think are going to be more common with global warming." Bond added, explaining that the NOAA and UW are now looking to The Blob to help them better understand and predict the affect of future warming on a larger scale. (Scroll to read on...) (Photo : NOAA National Climate Data Center) The Blob, flatening itself against the West Coast, as seen earlier this week. As things stand, the NOAA has acknowledged that the world as a whole is progressively warming, with ocean surface temperatures leading the way in this potentially harmful - and arguably unnatural - change. "This is a taste of what the ocean will be like in future decades," Bond added. But if The Blob is not humanity's fault, what caused it? To find the answer, Bond's joint research team looked to a persistent high-pressure ridge that caused a calmer ocean during the past two winters. Calmer water naturally takes longer to cool, as the very surface of a liquid can almost act as an insulator for what lies beneath. This is not all that different from when you blow on a bowl of hot soup. Without occasionally stirring the meal to ensure that warmer soup makes it to the surface, you'll be waiting all day. The presence of a newly identified El Niño southern oscillation could also be what is helping keep The Blob around, as this natural phenomenon shifts new warm water in a north-eastward pattern across the globe. So what is The Blob up to? According to a study recently published in the journal Geophysical Research Letters, the joint research team determined that The Blob may be redirecting fish traffic, as it is packed with less nutrient-rich Pacific Ocean water. This could be disrupting the West Coast's delicate food webs, causing stunning school sightings in some unusual places. read more............. natureworldnews.com