30 Years of Global Cooling

Ah, it would have been nice to keep that warming trend. Darn these natural cycles.

On Hiding Past Cooling Trends

There are several reports of older print articles discussing the steep cooling period from about 1940 to about 1978 (which gave rise to the “coming ice age” scare of the 70s.) One of the reasons the cooling period is interesting is because of several more recent adjustments to make it warmer (and boost the alarmist cause.)

JoNova discusses it here:

Human emissions of carbon dioxide began a sharp rise from 1945. But, temperatures, it seems, may have plummeted over half the globe during the next few decades. Just how large or how insignificant was that decline?

here’s the rest: Hide the decline and rewrite history?

She also has a followup post: Where did the decline go?

WattsUpWithThat? also has the story: Weather balloon data backs up missing decline found in old magazine

And Hide the Decline has even more detail and some interesting comments.He also points out why the measurements of the cooling are probably good.

Next to the historic data war on the Medieval Warm Period, the data war on the 1940-78 perhaps stands as the most bitter and intense climate disagreement.

Here’s the rest: Decline: Temperature decline 1940-78, the cold data-war

Other posts on the topic:

• ’34 was/wasn’t/was/wasn’t warmer – Has there been some fudging of the numbers?
• The Ice Age scare of the 70s
• Media accounts of Warming/cooling/warming/cooling

The Snowball Earth Could Make for Permanent Ski Conditions

If you Google (or Bing or Y!) Snowball Earth (or go here) you’ll find something akin to the following idea. Some 700+ million year ago the Earth was covered in ice. That ice extended all the way to the equator. Some say it’s happened at least twice. Around 715 million year back and again at around 600 million years.

WUWT has a post in the subject: “sea ice extended to the equator 716.5 million years ago” Fascinating stuff, i think. It’s also likely that CO2 was far higher in those days, so why did it the world freeze over? There have been a few other ice ages since then, long before the current set, despite higher CO2.The article doesn’t actually say anything about CO2, though the graphic does.

I’ve seen some remarks by Geologists who suggest that land-masses at the poles are necessary for ice ages, along with certain formations of the continents. Circulation is cut off and the world cools. Enough ice forms, albedo increases, the cooling accelerates, and you have an ice age (I’m way over simplifying here.)

Questions…

The article and the commenters raise some questions:

1. Are there any papers which contradict the idea? One commenter said a paper has already debunked it.
2. Are there any other hypotheses that would explain the scientists’ observations? Axial tilt? Weaker sun combined with…? Asteroid hit causing massive planet-wide volcanic activity, combined with the correct placement of the land masses?
3. The article admits that they don’t know the triggering causes for the Earth becoming a snowball, or for leaving that phase, though there is a vast igneous province that suspiciously dates to about the same time. Super volcano?
4. A commenter says that while Geologists generally believe that CAGW is complete bunk, biologists are believers. Why? I have a biology degree (ancient, moldy, but still there.) I’d think that biologists would be the first group to be hollering that more CO2 is a good thing and that life shows remarkable adaptability.
5. Another commenter states that when the current series of ice ages ends (in a few million years) CO2 will bounce back to a more normal 1200ppm to 2500 ppm. Why? Outgassing from the oceans?

Global Cooling for Next 30 Years?

From WattsUpWithThat:

Latif thinks the cold snap Americans, Brits, and Europeans have been suffering through is the beginning of another cycle, this one a down cycle. He says we’re in for 30 years of cooler temperatures. While maybe it is a harsh prediction, he calls it a “mini ice age”. That phrase is sure to stick in the craw of more than a few people. His theory is based on an analysis of natural oscillations in water temperatures in the oceans.

According to (the article) he believes our current cold weather pattern is a pause, a “30-years-long blip”, in the larger cycle of global warming, which postulates that temperatures will rise rapidly over the coming years.

Here’s the rest: IPCC scientist: Global cooling headed our way for the next 30 years?

Note: Latif essentially says that he was misquoted. WUWT has the updates, so click through to read them.

Now, if the current cooling trend is caused by various natural factors that are suppressing Warming, then it’s reasonable to conclude that similar factors enhanced the warming in the 80’s and 90’s.

Time Mag Announces Approaching Ice Age

And more…

I’ll just drop them in as I come across them. Most recent are at the top of the list.

• In 1971, the world’s top climate scientists Schneider, Hansen and Rasool predicted that burning fossil fuels would trigger an ice age. They also determined that CO2 was nothing to worry about. Here.
• The End Holocene – a discussion of abrupt climate change leading to an ice age. Includes clips from the 70s of scientists warning Nixon of exactly that. Also see Glacial Inception and the prior articles linked to from these two posts.
• U.S. Scientist Sees New Ice Age Coming

5/27/13:

PopTech added a comment noting that the list of cooling alarmism is his. Here’s his page: 1970s Global Cooling Alarmism. (It’s also linked to, below.) The comment below, from Newsbusters, is also his.

Thank you, PopTech!

5/21/13: 

The 1970s Ice Age Scare


Lots more here

Update 3/1/13:  Similar list from WUWT, but longer, and one from PopTech.

Update 7/4: More debunking of the “cooling scare deniers:”  The CIA documents the global cooling research of the 1970’s

Update 2/7: Some wags claim that the 70s ice age scare has been discredited. Unfortunately for their argument and their meme of “Doom!”, they’re wrong. As usual.

Deniers from the hockey team tell us that the 1970s ice age scare never happened, or that scientists were not behind it. They are as well informed as holocaust deniers. Below is overwhelming evidence that the 1970s were colder than earlier in the century.

Here’s the rest and the excerpts, lots of excerpts: Liars And Deniers In The Midst

update 12/17: ClimateDepot has a writeup on the subject:

Despite many claims to the contrary, the 1970’s global cooling fears were widespread among many scientists and in the media. Despite the fact that there was no UN IPCC organization created to promote global cooling in the 1970s and despite the fact that there was nowhere near the tens of billions of dollars in funding spent today to promote man-made global warming, fears of a coming ice age, showed up in peer-reviewed literature, at scientific conferences, voiced by prominent scientists and throughout the media.

Newsweek Magazine even used the climate “tipping point” argument in 1975. Newsweek wrote April 28, 1975 article: “The longer the planners delay, the more difficult will they find it to cope with climatic change once the results become grim reality.”

But on October 24, 2006, Newsweek admitted it erred in predicting a coming ice age in the 1970’s.

here’s the rest: Climate Depot’s Factsheet on 1970s Coming ‘Ice Age’ Claims

NoFreeWind discusses this Time article, from 1975. Links to the article and more info are on that site.  The Cooling World

Science News had a similar article, here: (Here’s a local copy in case the above link disappears.)

Headlines from the New York Times

The print version: Newsbusters has 150 Years of Global Warming and Cooling at the New York Times

PDFs on Cooling and other hysteria

Fire and Ice

More media reports of warming and cooling. This is the Fire and Ice PDF and details science and media hysteria over the last century. Here’s a web page version.

Science News 1975: The Chilling Possibilities

More Links

The following selection of links is from Newsbusters, and was posted in the comments section: (5/27/13 – this list was posted on Newsbusters by PopTech.)

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 – New Ice Age Coming – It’s Already Getting Colder (L.A. Times, October 24, 1971)
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 – 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)
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)
1978 – Believe new ice age is coming (The Bryan Times, March 31, 1978)
1978 – The Coming Ice Age (In Search Of – TV Show, Season 2, Episode 23, May 1978)
1979 – New ice age almost upon us? (The Christian Science Monitor, November 14, 1979)

Carbon Dioxide (CO2) is Not Pollution

Read the whole Newsbusters article here: 100 Years of Headlines About Catastrophic Climate Change (The video above is an updated version of the one on the Newsbusters page, provided by one of their commenters, and is much easier to watch.)

Lies? Truths?

The alarmists say that the warnings of cooling in the 70s are a skeptic lie. Yeah, well, somebody was feeding those stories to the media. Maybe it was a noisy Al Gore type or maybe the media made it all up, much like they do today. Maybe it’s the alarmists who are lying, given the hysteria that their side is pushing.

Either way, the media is relevant, since that’s where most people get their info. The media IS the voice of science for most people. Perhaps the alarmists should be concerned about modern reporting on climate?

Update – more links to articles of Doom!:

• 1976, Time: Environment: Forecast: Famine?
• Nice graphical timeline of media headlines
• Rare honesty from media: Newsweek Changes Media Climate 31 Years after Global Cooling Story
• NASA (no scientists there, right?) predicted the coming ice age back in ’71. The model for the prediction seems to have been written by… one James Hansen.
• Love this quote, “One might almost conclude that, in the world of climatology, theories are made to order.” From this article describing a ’74 CIA report on the threat of global cooling.
• More on the CIA report
• PDF of the CIA report
• 1998, Fred Singer editorial – Scientists add to heat over global warming
• Excerpt from the August 1977 book “The Weather Conspiracy, the Coming of the New Ice Age” Random House.
• Clip of  a 1982 article: How to be right about the climate, always.
• In Search Of… (remember that show? Loved it.) The coming Ice Age
• Register Herald: New evidence indicates ice age (Google news archive)
• Calgary Herald, Jan 10, 1978: Little Ice Age

In a few years will the media be telling us, again, of the approaching ice age? Will the fear-mongering crowd (Al Gore crowd) be telling us that “scientists were not warming of Global Warming in the 90s and early 2000s?”

Update 2/18/11:

• The Global Cooling Scare Revisited (‘Ice Age’ Holdren had plenty of company) – Recent attention has been paid to the coming Ice Age talk of John Holdren and Steven Schneider before they got global warming religion. Here are some “global cooling” quotations and comments from an earlier era…
• New Ice Age Seen Within Our Lives (1975)

References to related stuff on Amazon:

• Fred Singer: Unstoppable Global Warming: Every 1,500 Years, Updated and Expanded Edition
• The Genesis strategy: Climate and Global Survival
• The Cooling: Has the Next Ice Age Already Begun?

Light Reading on Amazon:

• The World in Winter (Alpha Books) – A post apocalyptic world where an ice-age has rendered much of the northern world uninhabitable. Out of print, but available used.
• Fallen Angels – Reeling under a new ice age, the lunatic fringe of the environmental movement controls the US government. Abandoned by Earth, the space colonies replenish their air by scoop-ships diving into the atmosphere – but Alex and Gordon’s ship was hit by a missile, and they are now wanted dead or alive.