Svalbard, Norway
Reference
Berge, J., Johnsen, G., Nilsen, F., Gulliksen, B. and Slagstad, D. 2005. Ocean temperature oscillations enable reappearance of blue mussels Mytilus edulis in Svalbard after a 1000 year absence. Marine Ecology Progress Series 303: 167-175.
Reference
Berge, J., Johnsen, G., Nilsen, F., Gulliksen, B. and Slagstad, D. 2005. Ocean temperature oscillations enable reappearance of blue mussels Mytilus edulis in Svalbard after a 1000 year absence. Marine Ecology Progress Series 303: 167-175.
Description
A thermophilous mollusk community was detected in 2004 along the west coast of Svalbard (78°13'N, 14°E) that is believed to have been initiated by larvae transported "in unusually warm water" from the mainland of Norway during the summer of 2002, after a 1000-year absence from where the mussels were "abundant" during "warm intervals in the Holocene." The authors say the reappearance "suggests that recent water temperatures approach [our italics] those of the mediaeval warm period," which implies that it is not yet as warm at that high northern latitude as it was during the Medieval Warm Period (~AD 800-1200).