Abstract
Unusual weather patterns were the rule from Adelaide to Quito. Australia experienced killing droughts and subsequent fires devastated large sections of land. In Equador, areas that normally receive 13 mm of rain during a dry-season month were inundated with 583 mm. Ocean temperatures along major portions of the west coasts of the Americas were in some areas 10^o warmer than usual. These warm waters caused a marked drop in primary production of microorganisms, and as a result the usually enormous anchovy population disappeared. Animals which depended on the fish either starved or hunted elsewhere for food. On Christmas Island, for example, an estimated 17 million eggs and unfledged young of sea birds were abandoned because the food in surrounding waters literally disappeared.