Warm Water Blob Survives as El Niño Dies

It’s being called a marine heat wave. The combination of the strongest El Niño in recent history and the warm water anomaly known as the Blob generated the greatest amount of warm ocean water that has ever been recorded, possibly affecting marine life up and down the West Coast. New research has now linked the two phenomena, with each believed to be alternately affecting the other through the atmosphere and the ocean. El Niño is the warming of the equatorial Pacific Ocean and it can affect wind, temperature and precipitation patterns around the globe.