California's warm waters are drawing rare sea creatures north
El Niño and a marine heat wave are bringing warmer ocean water temperatures off the coast of California and with them, in recent weeks, an oddity of sea creatures. From endangered turtles nesting on beaches to a whale shark swimming off San Diego, the coast of Southern California is seeing a wave of marine species not typically found in the region. And while they may be fascinating sights to behold, the warmer waters do more than just pave the way for unusual sea creature sightings; such conditions can also pose risks to the local ecosystem. "It's important to remember that a lot of our local species that we normally find in San Diego aren't quite adapted for these higher temperatures, so we're very closely monitoring those species and trying to figure out how the warm water will affect them and how the ecosystem may change over time as our oceans continue to warm," Zach Merson, a PhD student at the Simmons Lab at UC San Diego's Scripps Institution of Oceanography , said in a Facebook video. What is El Niño? El Niño , a naturally occurring phenomenon that warms ocean surface temperatures in the central and eastern tropical Pacific Ocean,
