Warmer water associated with the Pacific Blob first appeared about 125 miles off the West Coast of the United States in early 2014.
Notes on verification
The overall timeline (early-to-mid 2014 emergence, spreading along the West Coast) is well corroborated by multiple independent scientific and journalistic sources. However, the specific '125 miles offshore' detail could not be independently verified beyond the original National Geographic article, which likely draws from a single satellite study (Gentemann et al.). [tier=gold indep_score=1.0 clusters=4 claim_tier=notable]
Sources
- A Striking New View of the Pacific 'Blob' (seed:science_and_space)
- https://www.earthdata.nasa.gov/news/feature-articles/blob (corroboration)
- https://www.science.org/doi/full/10.1126/science.348.6230.17 (corroboration)
- https://www.pmel.noaa.gov/featured-publication/causes-and-impacts-2014-warm-anomaly-ne-pacific (corroboration)
- https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5703460/ (corroboration)