Global Temperature?

Question

Why do people believe in Global Warming now when they
believe Global Cooling in the 1970's?

Answer 1

Global cooling in the 1970's was due to fewer sunspots. And if the Sun's cycles continue as in the past, 2010 should be the start of our return to cooler climate.

I think people like to be scared. In the 60's it was the population explosion and diminishing resources, 70's was global cooling, 80's was the spotted owl, and running out of landfills, 90's it was Y2K, and now it's global warming.

Ever wonder what we're going to face next? Probably mercury poison from CFC light bulbs.

Answer 2

There is much more evidence to prove we are in a state of global warming due to climate change.

I have read recently that a company called Planktos is attempting to seed the ocean by mass addition of iron to increase phytoplankton / plankton growth and an amount of increase could be enough to stop global warming in its tracks.

If this is possible, wow that is fantastic but I hope everyone realises that all plants on land are sources for CO2 processing as well. Remembering that plants actually produce oxygen and consume CO2. The more plantlife we have photosynthesising the better.

Just a friendly reminder, global warming had a lot anthropogenic causes including wide-spread deforrestation. Recovering our atmosphere has got to include re-forresting. Hug a tree today!!! :)

Answer 3

Global cooling in the 1970's is something of a misconception as it never happened and nor was it expected to happen.

It wasn't predicted by the scientists but some elements of the media picked up on research that was being conducting into global cooling and basically rewrote what the scientists were saying. It just so happened that it was in the 1970's but similar research and findings date back hundreds of years and is continuing to this day.

The work of the scientists involved studies into what caused the coming and going of ice ages, warming trends, cooling trends, glacial advance and retreat etc (look up Milankovitch Cycles, Feedback Mechanisms, Positive and Negative Forcings), the correctly predicted that in time the world will cool if there were no extenuating circumstances.

At the end of the day there were no scientific reports published and the whole thing amounted to nothing more than a handful of short articles in a small number of publications.

Perhaps the best way to confirm for yourself that there was no global cooling scare in the 70's is to ask people who lived through that decade.

Answer 4

There was a small and short-term global cooling from approximately 1940-1970, caused primarily by volcanic and human aerosol emissions which temporarily overwhelmed the global warming trend:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Climate_Change_Attribution.png

There's now a myth going around that climate scientists in the 1970s predicted that we were headed towards a new ice age because of this cooling. In reality the scientists of the time knew better than to make any long-term conclusions based on the short-term cooling. For starters, climate science was still very young at that time and has advanced very far in the ensuing 4 decades.

http://gristmill.grist.org/story/2006/11/23/18534/222

Answer 5

Scientists studying the climate during the past century have largely been interested in learning what caused Earth's past ice ages. By the 70's they were just beginning to fully understand the various different forcing mechanisms affecting the climate.

During the 70's there was a slight cooling trend that led one or two scientists to speculate that the trend could lead to various different feedback mechanisms that could lead to an ice age. There were no peer reviewed articles written on the subject and the idea received very little support from the scientific community.

The media blew everything out of proportion (naturally), claiming that scientists had predicted an "imminent ice age", when they hadn't done anything of the sort. In fact, scientists in the 70's were already aware that human emissions of greenhouse gases were having a warming effect on the climate. They were far more concerned about this than any short term cooling trend.

Answer 6

The answer is that scientists didn't believe in global cooling in the 70s.

That was just a few guys with no good data and no backing from any major scientific organizations. It was blown up by the media. Details here.

http://www.realclimate.org/index.php?p=94

This is thousands of scientists with massive amounts of data, backed by essentially every major scientific organization:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_opinion_on_climate_change
http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/306/5702/1686

http://ipcc-wg1.ucar.edu/wg1/wg1-report.html
summarized at:
http://www.ipcc.ch/SPM2feb07.pdf

It's a completely different deal.

Answer 7

My reading of the global cooling scare is that it comes down to the media wearing their ***-hats, as they often do.

I am something of a skeptic, and even I have grown tired of this old saw.

Answer 8

Global cooling in the 1970's was due to particulates emitted into the atmosphere. These were mostly sulfur compounds. They would stay in the upper atmosphere and reflect sunlight back to outer space before it could warm the Earth.
We stopped burning fuel with high sulfur content and have since developed ways to better filter the smoke from smoke stacks. We were emitting CO2 then but the effect of CO2 was over shadowed by the effect of the sulfur particles.

Answer 9

it's global climate change.....becuase not every where is getting hotter.......and when it's not supposed to rain, it is raining...where it's supposed to rain, it's not raining

Answer 10

Ask any liberal enviromentalist whacko, and they will tell you they are the smartest person in the room and so they can tell others, you should give them your money.