Nudibranch Roses Blooming in Uncommonly Farther North in California Due to Warmer Oceans
ByThe Northeastern U.S. may be getting buried in snow, but Northern California is seeing some ultra-rare flowers in bloom due to uncommonly warm winds.
According to the San Jose Mercury News, researchers at the University of California - Santa Cruz (UCSC) have taken note of the Hopkins' rose nudibranch making its way farther north in the state than it is used to. The researchers said uncommon wind patterns are a likely contributor.
"We haven't seen anything like it in years. These nudibranchs are mainly southern species, and they have been all but absent for more than a decade," John Pearse, a professor emeritus of ecology and evolutionary biology at UCSC, said in a press release.
The nudibranch, a small, pink sea slug, is a noted warm-weather species and ocean temperatures off the coast are some five degrees warmer than past averages.
"It never really cooled off and gradually got warmer and warmer," Logan Johnson, a forecaster with the National Weather Service in Monterey, told the Mercury News. "It's still running about 58 degrees right now in the Monterey Bay, and it hasn't cooled off to the lower 50s.
"Northwesterly winds will basically blow away water at the surface, and deeper, colder waters will rise up and replace it," he said. "We just didn't see those winds."
UCSC researchers previously collaborated with the UC Santa Barbara Marine Science Institute, the California Academy of Sciences and University of Zadar in Croatia on a paper in 2011 that forecasted these oceanic conditions.
"At first, we were worried the nudibranchs were being killed off by something, but it turns out it's more of a natural fluctuation," Pearse told the Mercury News. "We're now entering again another warm phase. We have no idea whether this is part of the ongoing oscillation back and forth or if it's perturbed by global warming; probably both."