New research suggests that unusual weather across the United States in the last few years may be caused by an unusual “blob” of warm water in the pacific.

Two recent papers published in Geophysical Research Letters describe a long lived patch of water which ranges from two to seven degrees warmer than it should be, off the US West Coast. Describing it as a “patch” is probably underselling it a bit. The blob is roughly 1000 miles in each direction and 300 feet deep.

“In the fall of 2013 and early 2014 we started to notice a big, almost circular mass of water that just didn’t cool off as much as it usually did, so by spring of 2014 it was warmer than we had ever seen it for that time of year,” said Nick Bond, a climate scientist at the University of Washington-based Joint Institute for the Study of the Atmosphere and Ocean, and lead author of one of the new studies.

Bond originally coined the term “the Blob” in his monthly newsletter, as the state climatologist for Washington, suggesting that the warm water had contributed to the mild winter that year and could lead to a particularly warm summer in 2015.

Ten months after the original observation, the blob is still there. It currently runs from Mexico to Alaska, extending about 1,000 miles offshore and running 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit warmer than it is supposed to be. According to Bond there is no reason to think that it will dissipate anytime this year.

Bond and his colleagues explore the blobs origins in this new study and attribute it to a “persistent high-pressure ridge”. The ridge caused a calmer ocean which means less hit loss due to cold air above the water. In other words the cause is less natural cooling rather than abnormal warming.

The researchers also looked at the impact of the blob on marine life. They report that the warm water is driving fish into unusual locations, disrupting the food web off the West Coast and causing things like the massive die-off of sea lions.

The influence of the blob also extends further inland. Air passing over the warm water brings more heat and less moisture which, the researchers believe, contributes to the current drought on the West Coast.

In a separate study by University of Washington professor of atmospheric sciences Dennis Hartman the blob is examined as part of an overall pattern contributing to harsh winters in the eastern US. Hartman think that conditions in the south have more to do with the cold-wet winters than the “polar vortex”.

Hartman’s research links changes in the south Pacific with changes in the North Pacific, the North Pacific mode. This, he argues, resulted in warm dry air for the West Coast and cold, wet air for the central and eastern United States.

“Lately this mode seems to have emerged as second to the El Niño Southern Oscillation in terms of driving the long-term variability, especially over North America,” said Hartmann.

This pattern, which is also related to the blob, has become stronger since 1980 according to the researchers and is now second only to El Niño in its influence.

“It’s an interesting question if that’s just natural variability happening or if there’s something changing about how the Pacific Ocean decadal variability behaves. I don’t think we know the answer. Maybe it will go away quickly and we won’t talk about it anymore, but if it persists for a third year, then we’ll know something really unusual is going on,” said Hartmann.

Bond adds that while there is no evidence that the blob is caused by global warming, that it may be a sign of things to come as the global climate changes.

“This is a taste of what the ocean will be like in future decades. It wasn’t caused by global warming, but it’s producing conditions that we think are going to be more common with global warming,” said Bond.