Tourists visiting the Algarve can now look forward to seeing fish they previously would have only found in sub-tropical seas or warmer corners of the Mediterranean Sea.

On the other hand, explained Jorge Gonçalves in comments to the Lusa News Agency, marine flora, typical of cooler waters, is being pushed further north, seeking to escape the rising sea water temperature in the Algarve.

Jorge Gonçalves, a researcher at the Centre of Ocean Sciences at the University of the Algarve, further believes that overall, the major benefactor of the climate change in the Algarve, will be the fishing industry, which can look forward to a greater array and variety of fish species appearing in their nets.

In separate findings, and perhaps more disconcerting, another researcher at the University has predicted that the Algarve will be affected by periods of drought that will last much longer and be far more severe.

In addition, explains Tomasz Boski, the region will be hit by more frequent forest fires, while days of recorded rainfall will be greatly reduced, though storms will be more violent and spread into the summer months as is the case in tropical regions.

Another feature of the region’s changing climate will be the regular appearance of ‘dry fog’. According to the coordinator at the Centre for Marine and Environmental Research, this phenomenon occurs mostly in May (as it did last Sunday on May 31st) and is related to sand granules being blown into the Algarve from the Sahara Dessert.

Another recent study meanwhile revealed that in a hundred years from now, most of the Portuguese coastline could be waterlogged and temperatures in the Algarve will soar, becoming a playground for swarms of bugs and parasites and forcing tourists to head north.

The study, exploring the effects of climate change on Iberian destinations to the end of the 21st century, was conducted by the Estoril Higher School of Tourism and Hospitality (ESHTE), its predictions being described as “worrying”, by Eunice Gonçalves, head of the ESHTE’s directive board and co-author of the study.

“The study was devised to warn people that if nothing is done to prevent the predicted future there are strong probabilities this catastrophic scenario will become a reality”, she said.

Rises in average temperatures of up to six degrees are forecast by the study for the Algarve, figures that have been predicted by other recent studies and surveys.

As a consequence, it is anticipated that tourist flows will start to head north, in search of cooler temperatures, and that winter will become the high season for the Algarve and southern Spain.

Those responsible for the research said climate change won’t be the ‘death’ of the Algarve, “but as a destination it will start to thin out and cause other regions to fatten up”, like Northern Portugal, Madeira and the Azores.

One of the most worrying effects is the average rise of sea levels, because of which experts predict a large part of Portuguese coastline will become waterlogged and submeced.

On a global scale, this century the sea has risen by 10 to 20 centimetres due to the melting of polar icecaps.

In a related story, a leading Portuguese expert has forecast that summer could last between five and six months by the middle of this century.

The official ‘bathing’ season, which commenced on June 1st and ends on September 30th, may have to be revised as thermometers start hitting the 30-degree mark earlier in the year, with temperatures in their mid-20s lasting well into October.

According to one of Portugal’s leading specialists in climate change, “With the rise in average temperatures, what we know as summer will be extended. Within the next 50 years, we will have five or six months of summer as opposed to two or three”, explained Filipe Duarte Santos.

Since records began in Portugal, January 2008 was confirmed as the second hottest ever.

Thermometers were also 1.3º above the usual January average, additional data showed.

Portugal was, in 2006, singled out in the Stern Review as being one of the European countries that will suffer most from global warming.

“The Mediterranean will see an increase in water shortages, heat waves and forest fires. Portugal, along with Spain and Italy, will be the hardest hit, which could result in a swing northwards in summer tourism”, explained the report.

The four years leading up to 2007 were the hottest on record in Portugal while the drought in 2005 and 2006 was only broken by heavy rains and floods three winters ago.