Environmental variables, fishing and biological data of the common squid, Todarodes pacificus were used to describe changes in structure, migration and abundance of the squid population in relation to ocean climate shifts. It was possible to consider the main groups of the squid (autumn and winter-spawned groups) as a single population to aid conservation in the waters around Korea and Japan (TWC and KOC regions). The patterns of yearly fluctuations in abundance of the squid population in the two regions were the same during 52 years of $1952{sim}2003$. The abundance of the squid began to decrease in both regions in the early 1970s, remained low in the 1980s and the main squid groups synchronously increased in the 1990s coincident with favorable changes of thermal conditions and plankton production in those ecosystems. The mechanisms of changes in the structure, distribution and abundance of common squid population in relation to current-mediated migration circuits are explained on the basis of phenological variables responding to climate shifts.