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Why storms are good news for fishermen

Pictures of spreads from New Scientist magazine

ON THE surface of the sea conditions can be atrocious, with freezing gales and enormous swells. Slip beneath the waves and descend into the blue, however, and you enter another world, a more tranquil place where the violence of the waves above turns into an ever-gentler to-and-fro, and the temperature never falls much below freezing.

We tend to assume that life in the oceans is insulated from the vagaries of the weather. But it is turning out that what goes on above the water's surface is intimately linked to the survival of the creatures below it, even far down in the depths of the ocean.

A single storm hitting at just the right moment, or a particularly icy winter, can lead to bumper catches of fish or traps full of crabs a few years later. Longer term climatic changes can also lead to huge swings in fish numbers. The ...



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