"So the hypothesis is that under warm ocean conditions, we'll see more sea turtles make it to the North American coast," says Dana Briscoe, Ph.D., a researcher with Stanford's Doerr School of Sustainability.
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She says the sea turtles -- seen as colored lines in an animation -- typically follow a food-rich band of warm water, known as the North Pacific Transition Zone, which acts something like a floating buffet.
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But then a satellite tracking map showed the movement researchers were waiting for. In late October and early November, more than half a dozen sea turtles began peeling ways away from the buffet line, heading southeast, with three turtles reaching the coastline of Mexico and Southern California.
"That's right," says a smiling Briscoe. "We have a milestone in our project. We have three sea turtles that have reached the North American coast and are doing very different things."
Briscoe and fellow Stanford-Doerr researcher Larry Crowder have hypothesized that the break-away turtles are slipping through a kind of Thermal Corridor. It's a warm water channel, they believe opens up during warm El Nino years and essentially slams shut when waters cool back down. Professor Crowder says this winter's tracking data could potentially confirm the El Nino part of the effect.
"And it happens to fit pretty well with our hypothesis that we put out there in advance. So, it's really exciting, because we're doing an experiment at an oceanographic scale. We're testing a hypothesis. Nobody's ever done that before," Crowder said.
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And if their luck holds out in a few months, the Stanford team will get a chance to test the flip side of the theory, with a colder La Nina current potentially in the forecast. This provides a chance to see if the cooler waters shut down the Thermal Corridor.
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"This July, we'll be releasing another 25 turtles. And we hope to get the same amount of information as this year. And we can compare and contrast and see under El Nino versus La Nina conditions. What will the turtles do the same and what will they do differently?" Briscoe said.
And whether some do or don't make it to the coast of North America. But ultimately, the Stanford team believes their research may also provide a look into the future -- uncovering critical clues to how climate change and warming ocean waters might affect the migration patterns of both the Sea Turtles and many other marine creatures as well.
Marine scientists are already studying the turtles who've made it to Mexico and Southern California, trying to learn more about their behavior along our coast. Follow along on the turtle tracker map here.