Gulf of Alaska warmest it has been in 50 years

VICTORIA, B.C. – Ocean surface temperatures off the British Columbia coast and in the Gulf of Alaska in the spring and summer of 2004 were the warmest in 50 years, according to a scientific report.

With temperatures up by as much as 5 to 7 degrees Fahrenheit in some areas, one effect was the appearance of unexpected species such as jumbo flying squid and invasive species, including Acartia tonsa, an exotic zooplankton found in the Atlantic Ocean, according to the report.

The findings were released Thursday in the 2004 Pacific Region State of the Ocean report by Fisheries and Oceans Canada, an annual report by nearly 30 scientists that is prepared, supervised and published by the Pacific Scientific Advice Review Committee.

Record highs were recorded on Line-P, a series of climate stations running about 930 miles west from Vancouver Island into the ocean.

The scientists believe the surface warming was caused by unusually warm weather over the ocean, British Columbia and southeast Alaska, and by global climate change, said Bill Crawford, a Canadian federal research scientist who heads the fisheries and oceanography working group at the Institute of Ocean Sciences.

“Clearly, something was different out there. It brought warm waters to the coast, the Strait of Georgia, and very warm waters to Hecate Strait,” Crawford said. “I’ve never seen a time when so much of the Gulf of Alaska was so warm.”

During the spring and early summer last year, atmospheric jet streams worked their way up to Alaska.

That caused a high-pressure system with long stretches of dry, sunny weather over British Columbia as winds from the south carried warm water northward through the Gulf of Alaska.

“This warming doesn’t fit other patterns,” Crawford said.

“It was a different kind of weather than we’ve seen.”