A strong marine heat wave, known as a blob, is back in the northern Pacific Ocean, causing record warm ocean temperatures and a potentially wetter-than-normal winter for the Pacific Northwest, say climate scientists.

Berkeley Earth, an independent organization that provides environmental data and peer-reviewed scientific analysis, says northern Pacific temperatures were nearly 2.5 C warmer this August than the pre-industrial average, a significant and likely long-term change.

Temperatures in the northern Pacific are running at all-time records and reaching temperature anomalies that are more typical of land areas than large oceanic basins, according to Berkeley Earth scientists.

The scientists say the warming continues a long-term trend over the last three decades, but that it has acce

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