Climate Change Is Driving Marine Species North, Changing California’s Coast

Scientists watched as recent ocean heatwaves pushed marine life north as far as 250 miles.

D-brief
By Roni Dengler
Mar 12, 2019 10:47 PMApr 22, 2020 12:19 AM
Bodega Bay, California Coast - Shutterstock
California's Bodega Bay, as seen from the iconic Highway 1 in Sonoma County. (Credit: yhelfman/Shutterstock)

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Just north of San Francisco, Bodega Bay cuts a crescent moon shoreline into the California coast. Toward the end of summer in 2014, the water temperature of the bay skyrocketed. In one of the most intense marine heatwaves on record, warm water persisted for nearly seven months. Now researchers say that the marine heatwaves that roasted Northern California’s coastline for two years also moved a record amount of marine life north. And these marine animal relocations forecast what California’s coast may look like in the future, the researchers say.

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