World's Fish Species Have Been Migrating to Cooler Water for Decades: Impact of Climate Change

Fish are on the move. New research has revealed that fish and other sea life are migrating toward the Earth's poles--and have been doing so for more than three decades. This mass migration seems to point to a changing landscape that has drastically been impacted by warming seas.

In order to examine how fish and, consequently, fisheries are currently being impacted by changing climate conditions, researchers looked at 968 different species of fish and invertebrates. After examining all of these species, the researchers found that a significant number of them have moved in order to escape the warming waters of their original habitats. This movement is likely to affect both fisheries and countries as temperatures rise.

"There'll be changes in the kinds of fish that are available to people who would like to follow that kind of (eating local) strategy," said Michael Fogarty, a biologist with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Northeast Fisheries Science Center not involved with the study, to NBC News.

In fact, commercial fishermen are already noticing these changes. The Atlantic mackerel have moved from Norway toward Iceland, for example. Now, a carefully negotiated treaty on the fish catch has been jeopardized due to this shift, and could further deplete population levels. This, in turn, could eventually lead to a population crash, according to The Washington Post.

Of course, some species are more drastically affected than others. Atlantic cod have a colder preferred temperature than tropical grouper, for example. Yet as these fish species move north, what's coming up in fishermen's nets provides a snapshot to our oceans' health.

"If the catch composition is having more and more warm-water species present in it, then the mean temperature of the catch will also increase," said William Cheung, a fisheries biologist at the University of British Columbia, in an interview with NBC News.

In fact, tropical regions may be the most drastically impacted by this change. As tropical fish move north, there won't be any fish left to replace them. This, in turn, will affect countries located in those areas that depend on the fish for their livelihoods.

The findings show a significant issue currently occurring in our world's oceans. As populations continue to develop a taste for fish and as countries continue to overexploit fish species, drastic changes will be needed in order to cope with rising temperatures.

The latest study was published in the journal Nature.