A lot has often been made of the fact that so called warm water creatures are appearing much further north than is normal. For example Mediterranean fish caught in British waters, or even birds spotted much further north of their habitual domain. For the advocates of Global Warming this is firm evidence in support of their claims of human induced climate changes.
But is it?
As frequent visitors to this site will know, we are firmly of the belief that temperature anomalies, are solely the result of changed winds, bringing warmer, or even colder winds and temperatures to places where such creatures are far from the norm. Moreover winds and sea currents often act in tandem, with one having a very definite effect on the other. It follows then that changed wind patterns will also result in changed sea currents, and in the Pacific Ocean this is most demonstrably the case. However this is very much a world-wide phenomenon with changed sea currents bringing a new wealth of life to areas they would not normally frequent.
Hence there is no great mystery to fish or birds being found far from their normal habitat. Nor does it imply these will be long term changes: Simply that for the moment ocean and wind conditions allow for an overlap of species in either direction. Moreover this is a process that has existed for a very long time and is certainly nothing new. For example even as far back as the 1960’s fishermen in the Mediterranean often caught or witnessed fish species traditionally to be found in much more northern climes. Those with especially long memories will recall that this was a period when Global Cooling was all the rage. The experts of the day had decided - through equally feeble evidence as now supports Global Warming - that we were headed for the next Ice Age.
And it wasn’t only fish that were being caught out of place. Reliable sightings were often made of Puffins seen on Mediterranean shores, but these sightings were dismissed by experts as impossible: Dismissed that is until years later when the so called experts began to see the Puffins for themselves.
It seems obvious that a much wider migration of species into non traditional climes has existed for a much longer period than the current furore over Global Warming. It is also apparent that creatures will follow new wind and sea currents and quite naturally will want to explore new horizons while the opportunity exists. Before long however changing circumstances will bring a stop to these migrations or else encourage other species to explore previously closed domains. In other words this is an entirely natural development that is a sign of nothing other than periodically changing wind and sea currents in a way that has been going on for countless millennia.
