Fish and other sea life have been heading toward the Earth's poles for more than three decades, a mass migration to cooler waters that provides more evidence of a rapidly warming planet and has repercussions for fish harvests around the globe, according to a first-of-its-kind study released Wednesday.
The study, in the journal Nature, found that significant numbers of 968 species of fish and invertebrates examined by University of British Columbia researchers moved to escape the warming waters of their original habitats. Previous studies had demonstrated the same phenomenon for specific places in the world's oceans. The authors said their research is the first to assess the migration worldwide and to look back as far as 1970.
The research is more confirmation that "global change is real and has been real for a long time. It's not something in the distant future. It is well under way," said Boris Worm, a professor of marine biology at Dalhousie University in Halifax, Nova Scotia, who was not part of the study.