Ample evidence Florida’s feeling effects of climate change

Maybe the fish are on to something. Don Hammond, who catches, tags and releases dolphin-fish (also known as mahi-mahi), says those Florida natives are being hooked in some unusual places.

Like Massachusetts and Canada.

…Michael Fogarty heads the U.S. Global Ocean Ecosystem Dynamics Program with the National Marine Fisheries Program. His team of scientists has looked at oceans from Alaska to Antarctica; a full third of the 36 species of fish they studied have ”made a significant northward shift,” according to Fogarty.

A long-term change of less that two degrees may seem small, ”but for marine animals that’s quite a dramatic change,” Fogarty said. At the same time, the melting of Arctic sea ice has accelerated and is now at a point it wasn’t expected to reach until 2040.

Ken Able, professor of marine and coastal sciences at Rutgers University, has been collecting fish larvae every week for 19 years at Little Egg Inlet north of Atlantic City, N.J. He says the change in sea temperatures is causing a relocation of certain types of fish.

”We have clear data that the number of southern species is increasing