Don’t Dodge Reality By Blaming The Blob

Subtitle: How Replenished Ocean Pastures Will Break Through Warm Blobs, And Restore Ocean Productivity And Bring Back The Fish

In the eddy-dense ocean pastures of the North Pacific Ocean, a powerful natural force routinely defeats the so-called impenetrable thermal barriers — “The Warm Blobs” — that superficial climate and ocean models suggest are locking life out of the sea. That force? The synchronized migrations of billions upon billions of tiny marine grazers. The copepod/nekton living pump is just the starter motor to prime the big pumpers: the fish, seabirds, and great whales.

Every evening, as the sun sinks and the surface ocean cools, these planktonic animals rise in a mass vertical migration, covering 50 meters or more in less than ten minutes. In what is known as diel vertical migration, copepods swim upward from the cooler depths to graze on surface phytoplankton. At dawn, they descend again to evade predators.

This journey is not only a feeding ritual — it is a biological engine of ocean mixing.

Recent analyses show that the physical impact of this migration generates vertical mixing over 300,000 times more powerful than background stratified ocean mixing. Each copepod displaces water as it moves, and collectively they drag vast volumes of water upward from their cold, deep daytime refuge to the warmer, more stratified surface waters.

They are, in effect, a powered and motivated distributed pump that transports cool, nutrient-rich water from the depths to the surface, while also cooling the surface with their own small, cold masses. This vertical migration is not subtle — it’s a physical force comparable to, and often locally exceeding, the magnitude of winds and tides.

This extraordinary biological activity defeats the classical idea that warm stratified ocean layers are impenetrable barriers to nutrient cycling and productivity.

Where and when these migrations occur in the presence of mineral dust — particularly aeolian dust rich in iron and other nutrients — the result is a rapid and intense phytoplankton bloom.

This reframes the notion and scapegoating of so-called “warm blobs” — anomalous surface warming events observed in recent decades in the North Pacific. Rather than being zones of productivity collapse due to warm stratification alone, these blobs more accurately mark regions of diminished biological activity caused by the loss of the ocean pastures that once sustained these biological pumps.

Notably, since 1950, there has been an 80% decline in aeolian dust deposition over the North Pacific, a change that has effectively starved these ocean pastures of the minerals they need to bloom.

Thus, warm blobs are not the cause but rather the symptom of diminished ocean primary productivity. Without the plankton pastures that fuel the copepod and nekton pumps, these regions become deserts — not because they are warm, but because they are deprived of their essential mineral dust that nourishes both the ocean pasture and its living gardeners.

In every flourishing ocean pasture, as the diel living biological pump starts, it is promptly joined by countless larger members of the ocean pasture community. Small planktivorous fish are joined by predatory fish, seabirds, and whales — all who come to the pasture not for a free lunch, but rather to work. They add themselves to the biological mixing pump and serve as pasture rototillers.

Each and every creature works for the food the pasture provides. In doing so, they powerfully mix the water and fertilize it with their own natural compost. Whales, fish, and seabirds are the worms in this marine garden — moving through it, tilling, mixing, fertilizing, and feasting.

In effect, these migrating and feeding creatures are also ocean-scale climate engineers. Their presence actively breaks down stratification, allowing for nutrient exchange and cooling of surface waters. When they vanish, so too does this vital ecological service.

We must recognize that the biological pump is more than just a quirk of ocean life. It is a planetary-scale force — a self-sustaining, multi-species machine that transforms desertified water into a living, breathing ocean pasture. This pump functions best when supported by a steady supply of airborne mineral dust — the catalyst for phytoplankton blooms that fuel the entire ocean food web.

Unfortunately, the human-driven reduction in dust flux over the North Pacific since 1950 — due to changes in land use, vegetation cover, and atmospheric circulation — has cut off this essential nutrient supply. Even in the presence of diel migration, without iron and trace nutrients, the pump can’t operate at full capacity.

That’s why ocean restoration must prioritize restoring mineral input, especially iron, to the most depleted ocean regions. Doing so jump-starts the copepod and nekton pump, reactivating the most efficient vertical nutrient engine on the planet.

And let’s not forget — when the pasture is thriving, so too is the ocean economy. The resurgence of fish populations, seabirds, and whales delivers benefits not only to ecosystems, but also to coastal communities, fisheries, and future generations of humans who depend on a living sea.

The restoration of this biological pump is not science fiction. It is science in action. We’ve seen it work in targeted experiments. Now we must scale up, get serious, and stop blaming the blob.

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Ocean Mixing Enhancement Table

Ocean State	Estimated Vertical Mixing Coefficient (m²/s)	Relative Mixing Enhancement (x static)
Static lifeless warm blob layer	0.00001	1.0
Blooming layer with copepod/nekton pump	3.27	327,000.0
Fully biodiverse paradise ocean pasture	32.7	3,270,000.0

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Ocean Restoration Action Plan

The path forward is clear: we must act decisively to restore the mineral dust inputs that nourish the ocean pastures. This is not theoretical — it has been proven in the field.

The 2012 Haida Gwaii Ocean Restoration Experiment demonstrated the astonishing power of replenishing aeolian dust in the form of iron-rich mineral micronutrients. This single experiment achieved a 4.25 Sigma level of scientific certainty, placing it in the top echelon of environmental proof — greater than 99.99% confidence.

The bloom it initiated revived an entire marine ecosystem and led to record-breaking returns of pink salmon, confirming both ecological and economic value.

Building on that success, the next phase is ready to begin: a three-year meso-scale ocean pasture restoration engineering development program. This action plan will:

• Mature the methodology to meet rigorous standards of environmental safety
• Demonstrate ecological sustainability through continuous monitoring and adaptive management
• Establish clear pathways to economic viability and scalable deployment

This initiative aims to launch the replenishment and restoration of ocean pastures globally, empowering marine ecosystems with renewed life such that they will rebound and rapidly mitigate the majority of anthropogenic carbon damage done to our planet.

With the copepod/nekton pump and fishy friends re-engaged at full strength and the living ocean working once again, we will within ten short years witness the return of our oceans returned to their historic levels of health and abundance, more than sufficient fish to meaningfully reduce world hunger, and provide for my grandchildren a stable healthy climate.

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Further Reading from RussGeorge.net

• Warm Blobs and Cold Truths: The Disappearing Ocean Pastures
• Ghosts in the Machine Are Killing Our Oceans
• Ctrl-Alt-Del: How Earth’s Original Life, Cyanobacteria, Are Rebooting Our Ocean Planet
• 100 Villages to Restore This Blue Planet’s Ocean Pastures Immediately

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This article is adapted from ongoing field research and satellite data analysis on ocean stratification, biological mixing, and the long-term decline of ocean productivity due to reduced aeolian dust inputs.