00:04Overheated marine animals may swim tens to thousands of kilometers in search of cooler
00:09ocean waters.
00:10A NOAA-led team studied how far marine species like fish, whales, and turtles will go to
00:15escape marine heat waves, which are at least five consecutive days of hot water in patches
00:20of the ocean and have become more common in the past 100 years.
00:24Researchers say this displacement can constrain conservation efforts and fishery operations.
00:29They calculated animals' thermal displacement using data from NOAA satellites showing the
00:34surface ocean temperatures from 1982 to 2019.
00:38Plus, they identified marine heat waves, or areas where water temps stayed in the highest
00:4210 percent ever recorded for that region and that time of year.
00:46Researchers found in higher-latitude areas, marine animals didn't have to travel as far
00:51to find cooler waters.
00:52But in the tropics, species may have had to travel thousands of kilometers to beat the
00:57heat.
00:57The team says predicting animals' future thermal displacement is incredibly tricky, since
01:02climate change is expected to increase the frequency and intensity of marine heat waves,
01:07as well as warm all of Earth's oceans.
01:09The study was published in the journal Nature.
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