In 1998 Timothy Patterson from the Department of Earth Sciences at Carlton University, Canada, was funded to determine if there were regular cycles in West Coast fish productivity. The government was looking to establish appropriate fishing quotas including for species of anchovies, herring known to have “wide swings” in populations abundance.
Patterson writes in an article for the Financial Post entitled ‘Read the Sunspots’:
“In one season there would be abundant stock and broad harvesting would be acceptable; the very next year the fisheries would collapse. No one really knew why or how to predict the future health of this crucially important resource.”
He goes on to explain how in a search for a predictor of climate over thousands of years as a predictor of fish abundance his research team began collect and analyze core samples from the bottom of deep Western Canadian fjords.
The subtitle of the article is “solar output drives climate change – and we should prepare now for dangerous global cooling.”
I really like the opening paragraph:
“Politicians and environmentalists these days convey the impression that climate-change research is an exceptionally dull field with little left to discover. We are assured by everyone from David Suzuki to Al Gore to Prime Minister Stephen Harper that “the science is settled.” At the recent G8 summit, German Chancellor Angela Merkel even attempted to convince world leaders to play God by restricting carbon-dioxide emissions to a level that would magically limit the rise in world temperatures to 2C.”
And midway through the piece there is a list of the two dozen or so article in the series on the ‘Deniers’ : The National Post’s series on scientists who buck the conventional wisdom on climate science.
Read more here: http://www.canada.com/nationalpost/financialpost/comment/story.html?id=597d0677-2a05-47b4-b34f-b84068db11f4&p=4
SJT says
“Politicians and environmentalists these days convey the impression that climate-change research is an exceptionally dull field with little left to discover. We are assured by everyone from David Suzuki to Al Gore to Prime Minister Stephen Harper that “the science is settled.”
???? I don’t know where you get that idea, the field is cutting edge and has much research and new developments all the time.
Allan says
Exactly, and this research, according to the article, correlates fjord bed sediments to various cycles of the sun.
Here is one researcher who is predicting a new mini ice age by 2020!
Keep out the winter woolies.
Interesting article!
SJT says
The is the major source of climate? Well, you could have pushed me over with a feather. OF COURSE IT IS. But it’s not changing at the moment.