Satellite sea surface temperatures along the West Coast of the United States during the 2014–2016 northeast Pacific marine heat wave

Abstract

From January 2014 to August 2016, sea surface temperatures (SSTs) along the Washington, Oregon, and California coasts were significantly warmer than usual, reaching a maximum SST anomaly of 6.2°C off Southern California. This marine heat wave occurred alongside the Gulf of Alaska marine heat wave and resulted in major disturbances in the California Current ecosystem and massive economic impacts. Here we use satellite and blended reanalysis products to report the magnitude, extent, duration, and evolution of SSTs and wind stress anomalies along the West Coast of the continental United States during this event. Nearshore SST anomalies along the entire coast were persistent during the marine heat wave, and only abated seasonally, during spring upwelling‐favorable wind stress. The coastal marine heat wave weakened in July 2016 and disappeared by September 2016.

Constrained nearshore larval distributions and thermal stratification

“…Coastal sea surface temperatures in southern California began to warm as a result of 'the Blob' in mid-2014, after the start of our sampling regime, and remained anomalously warm until spring in 2015 (Leising et al 2015). El Niño impacted southern California starting in spring 2015 and intensified in fall− winter of 2015, corresponding to the highest temperatures recorded at our site, lowest larval abundances, and the peak of the southern California coastal warm anomaly (Leising et al 2015, Gentemann et al 2017. Decreased larval abundances in 2015 could be associated with environmental conditions that may have increased larval mortality or offshore advection, diminished onshore larval transport, decreased adult reproduction, or a combination of these factors.…”

Forcing of Multiyear Extreme Ocean Temperatures that Impacted California Current Living Marine Resources in 2016

“…Bond et al (2015) showed that record SSTa in the Gulf of Alaska (GOA) in 2014 were caused by a persistent ridge of high sea level pressure anomalies that reduced surface wind speeds and weakened normal cooling processes over the 2013/14 winter. In 2015, northeast Pacific SST extremes expanded to include an area encompassing Alaska to Baja California (Gentemann et al 2017). Di Lorenzo and Mantua (2016;hereafter DM2016) showed this persistent marine heatwave was a consequence of two atmospheric forcing/ocean response patterns, the 2014 GOA pattern and the 2015 northeast Pacific Arc pattern, linked with ENSO via teleconnections.…”

Linking the Tropical Northern Hemisphere Pattern to the Pacific Warm Blob and Atlantic Cold Blob

“…At its peaks during the winter of 2014 and summer of 2015, the positive sea surface temperature (SST) anomalies in the warming region reached as high as 28-38C and penetrated as deep as 180 m below the ocean surface Hu et al 2017). This patch of warm water then propagated from the Gulf of Alaska toward the coastal regions, resulting in an arc-shaped warming off the North American coasts during the following winter (Amaya et al 2016;Di Lorenzo and Mantua 2016;Gentemann et al 2017). This Pacific warm blob event exerted pervasive impacts on coastal ecosystems, North American climate, and air quality.…”