Global cooling in the 1970’s?

Question

Other than the occasional half page article in a small number of periodicals, could somebody direct me to a source of reliable information that foretold of a global cooling crisis in the 70’s?

Answer 1

I'm sorry, but if you are going to dismiss the articles in the periodicals of the time, it seems that you really don't want an answer.

There was no internet back in the 70s for the types of materials that we are seeing today to be posted. If you want to find the information that you are looking for, perhaps you should spend time in your local library reading science journals from that period, if you can find them.

It seems to me that you think we should believe the articles in periodicals such as Time and Newsweek when the are printing global warming articles, but they articles they printed back in the 70s are just the opinion of "only a few scientists." This is a rather narrow minded view. Some of the scientists quoted in those articles are from NOAA, which is the mecca of today's global warming fanatics Why should we believe today's NOAA scientists but not the ones from 30 years ago?

Answer 2

There were a few decades of cooling up until the 1970s. Now we are in a warming period. They complain about ice ages when it is cooling and global warming when it is warming. If they aren't sure, they call it climate change. Whatever it is, it is obviously damaging because capitalists caused it.. The freon was about the ozone layer and not global cooling. Some guy had a theory about the catalytic effect of free chlorine atoms or something like that. .That is what I remember reading about is so many decades ago anyway. I think the aerosol involved in cooling the atmosphere are only dust and other solid particles suspended in the air. The aerosols in spray cans probably all turn to gas after a short time and I seriously doubt they have a measurable effect even though I have heard it claimed otherwise. One guy said ozone depletion causes the mid troposphere to cool so that is why we don't see the actual greenhouse effects. .I only mention it becuase it is probably some talking point.

Answer 3

This article lists some sources for all the environmental scares of the past 100 years. I doubt you will find many reports or predictions that turned out to be wrong, from back in the 70s but, I can tell you that I read and heard them at the time. The winters were very cold and the cold spells lasted for many days. One winter, I had to get feed to over 800 cattle in the field every day so that they would have enough calories to survive. The wind chills in Kansas, were -20 to -45F for several weeks at a time. The snow would drift so high that I had to get my truck going about 30 mph to blast through and I got stuck a few times. I paid a lot of attention to the weather and the reports at the time.

I guess Newsweek could have just made up the last paragraph of the article "The Cooling World" which reads:

"Climatologists are pessimistic that political leaders will take any positive action to compensate for the climatic change, or even to allay its effects. They concede that some of the more spectacular solutions proposed, such as melting the Arctic ice cap by covering it with black soot or diverting arctic rivers, might create problems far greater than those they solve. But the scientists see few signs that government leaders anywhere are even prepared to take the simple measures of stockpiling food or of introducing the variables of climatic uncertainty into economic projections of future food supplies. The longer the planners delay, the more difficult will they find it to cope with climatic change once the results become grim reality."

Those were probably fictional climatologists.

Answer 4

Reliable information from pre-internet times concerning a failed prediction. Scientific integrity aside what organization is going to voluntarily devote webspace to demonstrate they goofed thirty years ago?

Nevertheless, the reputable National Geographic ran this bit:
"The November 1976 National Geographic story quoted the U.S. National Science Board as reporting in 1974: "During the last 20 to 30 years, world temperature has fallen, irregularly at first but more sharply over the last decade." It also quoted the National Science Board as forecasting two years earlier: "Judging from the record of the past interglacial ages, the present time of high temperatures should be drawing to an end ... leading into the next glacial age...."
http://www.thefreelibrary.com/Global+warming%3f+...+Or+global+cooling%3f-a0123635921

As you may have professional access to archives that the rest of us don't, it should not be too hard to search the US NSB/NSF archives for the source of that 1974 prediction.

As for me, I could care less if the scientists of the time speculated on cooling. I have little doubt that the media and general public prematurely took those musings and overblew the whole thing.

Here is one climatologist that admits he tossed out the possibility of global cooling:
"Stephen Schneider, a climatologist at Stanford University, recalls those stories well. "I was one of the ones who talked about global cooling," he says. "I was also the one who said what was wrong with that idea within three years."

Schneider coauthored a 1971 article in the journal Science about atmospheric aerosols—floating particles of soil dust, volcanic ash, and human-made pollutants. His research suggested that industrial aerosols could block sunlight and reduce global temperatures enough to overcome the effects of greenhouse gases, possibly triggering an ice age. But he soon realized that he had overestimated the amount of aerosols in the air and underestimated the role of greenhouse gases.

"Back then this science was so new, so theoretical, it was really hard to sort it out," he says. He and other early climate researchers say they did not predict a global cooling trend but simply suggested the possibility."
http://discovermagazine.com/2006/feb/global-cooling/

I think that pretty much illustrates my point about the media distortion of scientific processes. If there can be no freedom of ideas, including speculation and conjecture, then it tends to stifle science, eliminating the possibilities of brilliance when one successfully "thinks outside the box" - hence the term "breakthrough". If everyone's thinking fell into the same dull line...well, you probably have a better idea of this vital nature than I.


Can you admit that some of the outrageous claims of today's public and media often serve to dilute the true portions of current climate research and seriously threaten its credibility?
(In other words, "they're writing checks that the science can't cash.)

Answer 5

the "scientific data" isn't available for gobal cooling anymore.

why?

because it makes the "experts" look bad and they can't expain it away.

common sense says some reporter at news week didn't make it up. he'd been a laughing stock.

look at today's kool aid drinkers.

if you say anything negative about the lie.... er.... theory your pounced upon and discredited as a stooge for "BIG oil", or your just an idiot.

on the other hand, if global warming was "the truth all along" and a "couple of morons made up gobal cooing", where were the "consensus of scientists" setting the record straight back then?

and doing it as rabidly as they are now?

because global cooling was as mainstream in the scientific community then as global warming is now.

the global cooling package didn't sell, so they had to get a new product.

Answer 6

I read that there was speculation but no real testing had been done. The media got wind of it anyway, got carried away and started writing stories and spreading mass hysteria about it. I can't find the link right now but a similar thing happened to a polar bear cub named Knut in the Berlin zoo.
The difference between the global cooling media scare in the '70's and the GW issue of today is that there's been scientific testing and noted evidence for a warming trend humans and other animals are not able to adapt to quickly enough.

Answer 7

No--because there wans't any. During that period, scientists first started to develop advanced tools (computer models, etc.) and to work on studying long-term climate trends.

A number of articles in popular magazines (Time, Newsweek, etc) did features on this--and picked up on the fact that scientists speculated that we might have another Ice Age at some point in the future. But that's all tthat was--there was never any scientific consensus predicting "globlal cooling"--most scientists alread suspected the earth was warming, even then.

The magazines did feature story titles like "The Coming Ice Age" and such because it made attention-grabbing copy. That's as far as the "predictions" ever went.

Answer 8

You can try to search through this collection of publications about the subject at the time:

http://www.wmconnolley.org.uk/sci/iceage/

The ones I've looked through haven't drawn any conclusion about long-term trends. Certainly not an impending ice age.

Nevertheless, this is just one of those global warming denier myths/lies that will never die. If we had a time machine to take them back to the '70s and talk to scientists directly, they still would refuse to believe the truth.

Answer 9

you should have lived through like I did..my friends and I joke about the hysteria that is going on with global warming..I googled it and there are plenty of websites with global cooling

Answer 10

I see a handfull of people saying they "remember" or "lived through" a prediction of an ice age in the 1970's. My only response is "on what planet was that?" Unless you were on acid, it sure wasn't the earth.