The photos helped Timmer and his colleagues show something recent records had missed: climate change was reshaping kelp forests around Vancouver Island decades earlier than scientists understood. In a new UVic study, based on 1972 photos, old maps, scuba surveys and more, researchers found more than 550 hectares of bull kelp once floated near Comox and Denman Island. Most disappeared between 1972 and 1984 and none remain today.

The paper is here