1970s Global Cooling Scare

[Snow_Miser]

Global Cooling was considered to be widely unstoppable by many people. I can't seem to find any scientific papers that support Global Cooling- can someone direct me to some? Here are some newspaper articles...

1969 - New Ice Age Threat Seen (St. Petersburg Times, January 15, 1969)

1969 - Worrying About a New Ice Age (The New York Times, February 23, 1969)

1969 - Ice Age Biggest Threat According to Archeologist (The Hartford Courant, November 21, 1969)

1970 - Colder Winters Held Dawn of New Ice Age - Scientists See Ice Age In the Future (The Washington Post, January 11, 1970)

1970 - Is Mankind Manufacturing a New Ice Age for Itself? (L.A. Times, January 15, 1970)

1970 - Pollution Could Cause Ice Age, Agency Reports (St. Petersburg Times, March 4, 1970)

1970 - Pollution Called Ice Age Threat (St. Petersburg Times, June 26, 1970)

1971 - U.S. Scientist Sees New Ice Age Coming (The Washington Post, July 9, 1971)

1971 - Ice Age Around the Corner (Chicago Tribune, July 10, 1971)

1971 - New Ice Age Coming - It's Already Getting Colder (L.A. Times, October 24, 1971)

1972 - Air pollution may cause ice age (Free-Lance Star, February 3, 1972)

1972 - Scientist Says New ice Age Coming (The Ledger, February 13, 1972)

1972 - Scientist predicts new ice age (Free-Lance Star, September 11, 1972)

1972 - Ice Age Begins A New Assault In North (The Age, September 12, 1972)

1972 - British climate expert predicts new Ice Age (The Christian Science Monitor, September 23, 1972)

1972 - Scientist Sees Chilling Signs of New Ice Age (L.A. Times, September 24, 1972)

1972 - Another Ice Age? (Time Magazine, November 13, 1972)

1973 - Weather-watchers think another ice age may be on the way (The Christian Science Monitor, December 11, 1973)

1974 - New evidence indicates ice age here (Eugene Register-Guard, May 29, 1974)

1974 - Another Ice Age? (Time Magazine, June 24, 1974)

1974 - 2 Scientists Think 'Little' Ice Age Near (The Hartford Courant, August 11, 1974)

1974 - Ice Age, worse food crisis seen (The Chicago Tribune, October 30, 1974)

1974 - Believes Pollution Could Bring On Ice Age (Ludington Daily News, December 4, 1974)

1975 - Climate Changes Called Ominous (PDF) (The New York Times, January 19, 1975)

1975 - Climate Change: Chilling Possibilities (Science News, March 1, 1975)

1975 - B-r-r-r-r: New Ice Age on way soon? (The Chicago Tribune, March 2, 1975)

1975 - The Ice Age cometh: the system that controls our climate (The Chicago Tribune, April 13, 1975)

1975 - The Cooling World (Newsweek, April 28, 1975)

1975 - Scientists Ask Why World Climate Is Changing; Major Cooling May Be Ahead (PDF) (The New York Times, May 21, 1975)

1975 - In the Grip of a New Ice Age? (International Wildlife, July-August, 1975)

1976 - Worrisome CIA Report; Even U.S. Farms May be Hit by Cooling Trend (U.S. News & World Report, May 31, 1976)

1976 - The Cooling: Has the Next Ice Age Already Begun? (Book, 1976)

1977 - The Big Freeze (Time Magazine, January 31, 1977)

1977 - The Weather Conspiracy: The Coming of the New Ice Age (Book, 1977)

1977 - We Will Freeze in the Dark (Capital Cities Communications Documentary, Host: Nancy Dickerson, April 12, 1977)

1978 - The New Ice Age (Book, 1978)

1978 - Winters Will Get Colder, 'we're Entering Little Ice Age' (Ellensburg Daily Record, January 10, 1978)

1978 - Believe new ice age is coming (The Bryan Times, March 31, 1978)

(In Search Of TV Show, Season 2, Episode 23, Host: Leonard Nimoy, May 1978)

1978 - An Ice Age Is Coming Weather Expert Fears (Milwaukee Sentinel, November 17, 1978)

1979 - New ice age almost upon us? (The Christian Science Monitor, November 14, 1979)

Global Warming Alarmist Appeared in 1978's 'The Coming Ice Age' (NewsBusters)

[WeatherRusty]

Check out this link which examines the issue: HERE

The list of peer-reviewed climate change related papers can be found on page 11.

[skierinvermont]

The reason you are having a hard time finding scholarly review articles which predict global cooling in the 1970s is that they do not exist. What you will find from scientific articles in the 1970s is that the concept of global cooling was not widely endorsed and there was considerable debate on the subject. It was widely recognized that CO2 would have a warming impact but that aerosols would have a cooling impact and it was not possible at the time to know which would have a stronger effect. Reports in the popular press were often exaggerated and ignored caveats mentioned in scholarly articles. After reviewing scholarly sources and comparing to news media, I can only conclude that scientific news reporting was as bad if not worse in the 1970s as today. The widely reported claims of ice age predictions are simply not correct.

Here are some quotes from scholarly books and journal articles in the late 60s and 70s:

From Wiki:

In his 1968 book The Population Bomb, Paul R. Ehrlich wrote "The greenhouse effectis being enhanced now by the greatly increased level of carbon dioxide... [this] is being countered by low-level clouds generated by contrails, dust, and other contaminants... At the moment we cannot predict what the overall climatic results will be of our using the atmosphere as a garbage dump."^[4]

In 1970 a conference at MIT on climate entitled "Study of Critical Environmental Problems" concluded:

-"The projected 18% increase [in CO2] resulting from fossil fuel combustion to the year 2000 might increase the surface temperature of the earth .5C"

-"A doubling of CO2 might increase mean annual surface temperature 2C. Surface temperature changes of 2C could lead to long-term warming of the planet. These estimates are based on a relatively primitive computer model... but are the best we have."

-"Fine particles [sulfates, nitrates emitted by man] alter the heat balance of the earth.... We do not know enough about the optical properties (reflection vs absorption) of particles to know whether they produce warming or cooling of earth's surface."

http://books.google....%201970&f=false

In 1971 a paper in Science concluded that CO2 causes warming and aerosols cause cooling. A quadrupling in aerosol concentration would cause 3.5C of cooling.

http://www.sciencema...92/138.abstract

A 1974 National Science Board report to Congress concluded:

-CO2 may have a warming effect

-particulates may have a cooling effect

-"The state of knowledge is too limited to know whether the present unanticipated cooling trend will continue."

http://ia600305.us.a...lenge00nati.pdf

1976 article in Science:

-particulates have cooling influence, CO2 has warming influence

-mid century cooling may not be global, perhaps only northern hemisphere

-the effect of particulates will be strongest in northern hemisphere, CO2 effect will be global, thus possible that only northern hemisphere is cooling

http://www.sciencema...52/447.abstract

A 1979 National Research Council report concluded that the effect of doubling CO2 is between 2-3.5C, most probably 3C. This is similar to the modern estimate of climate sensitivity to CO2.

http://www.atmos.ucl...rney_report.pdf

[skierinvermont]

Check out this link which examines the issue: HERE

The list of peer-reviewed climate change related papers can be found on page 11.

Even better than mine.. more comprehensive. Didn't see you were posting... I spent the last hour compiling that and they were almost all included in yours . I dug some good quotes though.

The myth of global cooling is sadly ironic. There has been a general understanding among academics that CO2 causes warming for the last century. There was some debate in the 1970s as to whether the CO2 or aerosol effect would preponderate, but by the late 1970s this debate was largely resolved. There was never any consensus for global cooling; only the steady progression of the scientific method which is still being slandered by skeptics to this day.

[WeatherRusty]

Even better than mine.. more comprehensive. Didn't see you were posting... I spent the last hour compiling that and they were almost all included in yours . I dug some good quotes though.

The myth of global cooling is sadly ironic. There has been a general understanding among academics that CO2 causes warming for the last century. There was some debate in the 1970s as to whether the CO2 or aerosol effect would preponderate, but by the late 1970s this debate was largely resolved. There was never any consensus for global cooling; only the steady progression of the scientific method which is still being slandered by skeptics to this day.

Since the news media is where the majority of people obtain their scientific understanding, especially as it involves emergent scientific information, the news media are the principle entity tasked with informing the public. The news media is more about selling their product than anything else, they must stay in business after all. Thus, the concept of "pegging" new scientific developments to be in line with the most pressing issues of the day. Relevance sells, but it may produce a slanting of the truth in order to promote business. The primary literature is always the final arbiter however. Global cooling was not the scientific consensus during the 60' and 70's. There was no cooling consensus such as has since emerged since that time in favor of warming.

There still exists uncertainty as to the relative strengths of certain climate changing factors, such as in aerosols and clouds, but the sign of change is no longer in doubt.

[Jesse]

Even better than mine.. more comprehensive. Didn't see you were posting... I spent the last hour compiling that and they were almost all included in yours . I dug some good quotes though.

The myth of global cooling is sadly ironic. There has been a general understanding among academics that CO2 causes warming for the last century. There was some debate in the 1970s as to whether the CO2 or aerosol effect would preponderate, but by the late 1970s this debate was largely resolved. There was never any consensus for global cooling; only the steady progression of the scientific method which is still being slandered by skeptics to this day.

What if this steady progression of the scientific method comes to disprove the theory of AGW over time, as it did with the Ice Age theories 30-40 years ago?

Noooooo, impossible. At this point we know everything there is to know. The science is settled.

[skierinvermont]

What if this steady progression of the scientific method comes to disprove the theory of AGW over time, as it did with the Ice Age theories 30-40 years ago?

Noooooo, impossible. At this point we know everything there is to know. The science is settled.

As already explained, there was no consensus for global cooling in the 1970s. The consensus was that we didn't have a clue and that more research was needed. And it was already widely recognized that CO2 would cause warming. That has remained constant throughout most of the last century.

Now that that research has been performed, a consensus has developed that the earth is going to warm due to human emissions.

The comparison you are trying to make between modern climate science and climate science in the 1970s is completely inapplicable. Climate science in the 1970s said "we don't know." Climate science today says "the earth is 'highly likely' to warm" over the next century." And that this warming will 'likely' be between 2-4.5C.

Is it possible that certain, especially finer aspects of the science will change? Yes - that is the nature of science. Does that have anything to do with the status of climate science in the 1970s? No.

[WeatherRusty]

What if this steady progression of the scientific method comes to disprove the theory of AGW over time, as it did with the Ice Age theories 30-40 years ago?

Noooooo, impossible. At this point we know everything there is to know. The science is settled.

If it is disproved, then we go on from there. Also, no one claims the possibility to be impossible, not even the IPCC whose conclusions are given as likely to better than 90% certainty. The question is whether or not the world's people wish to utilize the findings of scientific investigation, the only means we have at our disposable to foresee potential problematic issues going into the future so as to enable us to be proactive in the determination of our future. The alternative is to progress blindly ignorant of the pitfalls which certainly lie ahead of us.

The climate is going to change if left to it's own. In the next several centuries it would be very unlikely to change to the degree we foresee as a consequence of AGW in any case. It is your prerogative to ignore or deny this threat. If collectively our decision is to ignore the science, then we can only hope the science as it currently stands is grossly in error.