"On the Record" - Our current climatic extremes predicted in 1985

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some of hurricane Andrew's damage

The "test by fire" of any theory or hypothesis is its power of prediction. And the theory outlined here has come through with flying colours. My predictions of rapidly increasing climatic instability and extremes - first made in 1985 when these things were utterly 'unthinkable' - have proven 100% correct.

Since nothing of the sort was even remotely evident, and not even remotely conceivable then, my 1985 predictions went unconsidered and unanswered. Early in 1990 I repeated my 1985 predictions as - stated here - in a letter to Dr. David Strangway, then President of UBC, in his capacities as Planetologist and Chairman of "The B.C Task Force on Environment and Economy". Dr. Strangway found my predictions of sufficient interest to forward them, among others, to Prof. Slaymaker, Dean of the Dept of Geology. The following is a severely down scaled and compressed copy (to reduce download time) of his letter to me.

The text reads as follows: "Dear Mr. Weiss (sic): I am writing to thank you for sharing your ideas on Environmental Dynamics. You raise many interesting and valid points.
I am forwarding your letter to Mr. Charles Connaghan who is the Chairman of the B.C. Round Table on Environment and Economy. This Round Table was struck as a recommendation by the B.C Task Force on Environment and Economy.
Thank you again for taking the time to write to me. Yours sincerely, David W. Strangway"

Almost a year later, I received the following reply from Prof. Olav Slaymaker, Dean of the Dept. of Geology at UBC:

The text (of this severely reduced copy) reads as follows: "Mr. Peter H. Weis
Dear Mr. Weis: President Strangway has passed your letter to me. I am not entirely sure whether or not you are requesting a response. It is certainly well known that greater variability of the climatic and hydrologic elements may be far more significant than the change in absolute temperature and/or precipitation. Your prediction is therefore of great interest and has potentially serious impacts. Analysis of local climate sequences, however, has so far failed to demonstrate the effect that you describe.
Yours sincerely. Olav Slaymaker, Professor and Head"

For somewhat more readable copies see -
Strangway Letter and/or Slaymaker Letter

That was in 1991. And as if to take issue with Prof. Slaymaker's statement, even our local climate - much tempered by the ocean and our forests as it is - began to exhibit more and more extremes. On a global scale though (the chief focus of my predictions), progressively increasing climatic extremes have since then become the everyday facts of our lives (see CLIMATE NEWS in these pages).