From SFGATE – You might remember the blob. Not the 1958 sci-fi movie, but the giant mass of warm water that formed in the Pacific Ocean in 2013 and continued to spread until 2015. It wreaked havoc on the West Coast marine ecosystem and dampened salmon runs. Scientists with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration have identified another expanse of warm water and say this marine heatwave could rival the blob. The impact on sea life could be devastating. Ocean surface temperature maps show the warm mass stretching from Alaska to California. It currently “ranks as the second-largest marine heatwave in terms of area in the northern Pacific Ocean in the last 40 years, after ‘the Blob,'” according to NOAA. “It’s on a trajectory to be as strong as the prior event,” Andrew Leising, a research scientist at NOAA Fisheries’ Southwest Fisheries Science Center in La Jolla, Calif., said in a statement. “Already, on its own, it is one of the most significant events that we’ve seen.” (more)