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Haddock and chips may become a thing of the past as the North Sea gets warmer, experts believe.

Other cold-water fish like plaice and lemon sole could also be off the menu.

The North Sea warmed four times faster than the global average in the last 40 years, scientists found.

They say fish like haddock would be prevented from swimming northwards to colder waters as the depth would not be suitable.

Louise Rutterford, of the joint team from Oxford and Bristol universities, said: “We will see proportionally less of some species we eat.”

Colleague Dr Steve Simpson added: “Cold-water species will be squeezed out, with warmer water fish likely to take their place.

“We need to look to Southern Europe for our gastronomic inspiration,” he said in the journal Nature Climate Change.

Due to higher temperatures, many of the species studied are predicted to reduce in relative abundance.

Louise Rutterford, a postgraduate researcher at the University of Exeter, said: “Our study suggests that we will see proportionally less of some of the species we eat most of as they struggle to cope with warming conditions in the North Sea.

“We provide new insight into how important local depths and associated habitats are to these commercial species.

“It’s something that is not always captured in existing models that predict future fish distributions.”