The supposed “global cooling” consensus among scientists in the 1970s — frequently offered by global-warming skeptics as proof that climatologists can’t make up their minds — is a myth, according to a survey of the scientific literature of the era.
The ’70s was an unusually cold decade. Newsweek, Time, The New York Times and National Geographic published articles at the time speculating on the causes of the unusual cold and about the possibility of a new ice age.
But Thomas Peterson of the National Climatic Data Center surveyed dozens of peer-reviewed scientific articles from 1965 to 1979 and found that only seven supported global cooling, while 44 predicted warming. Peterson says 20 others were neutral in their assessments of climate trends…
“A review of the literature suggests that, to the contrary, greenhouse warming even then dominated scientists’ thinking about the most important forces shaping Earth’s climate on human time scales.”
We will never run short of the odd, egregious git who thinks his own chilblains explain away science. It’s useful to see the record set straight.
I had heard that there was never a consensus on this issue. I think any presentation that there had been was always somewhat of an obvious bit of propaganda.
I have to agree with Scott. Well, I often do, anyway.
The usual bleat about global cooling purportedly quoting “all the articles I read back in the 70’s” – is most often from some nutball who reads next to nothing and gets his political guidance from talk radio.
I’m in South Dakota and I believe in global cooling. It’s damn cold out. Of course, by July I’ll believe in global warming.
what the hell does truth have to do with conservative belief that global warming is false. they’re like people who believe in ufo — you can prove to them that global warming exists a hundred million ways, but they will forever find a reason to believe that there could never be consequences for altering the chemical composition of the earth’s atmosphere, no matter what.
(they think you just wanna take away their light bulbs and suv’s, and they believe that they would simply die without them.)
Few people read peer reviewed papers. I think the news media was trying to drum up a panic about imaginary threats to boost circulation.
As I recall, about 1955 it was “A Generation At Risk!!!” because teen age boys were making hot rods that went “Over 100 MPH!!!” (I’ve seen a mortality graph that covered that era, and the teen age boys were dying at a rate equal to men in their mid 40’s.)
There was a quiet period, then the popular press was all a-twitter over “runaway greenhouse”, then we had a couple of cool summers and the news papers started hyperventilating about “global cooling”, then we had a couple warm winters and there were a few mumbles about “greenhouse”, then a quiet time and the civil rights marches started, about 1964. So, I don’t think the search went back far enough, and I would not be surprised if they found nothing at all peer reviewed.
Uh, Moss? There wasn’t any talk radio in the 70’s.
#6 – Phillep, Were you born yesterday? There has been talk radio as long as there’s been radio.
I suggest a new concept: Global Normalcy.
#6–Phillep==I took Moss’s statement to mean he was listening to talk radio TODAY saying there was consensus in the 70’s about global cooling. Its ambiguous and makes sense? Does seem to me though there was talk radio–just not neo con nut bag talk radio==although I’m sure John Birch was on the radio those days.
A comment: it wouldn’t really matter even if there was such a consensus back then. Science changes with new facts, assumptions, models. Most often, its only by CHANGE that we come closer to the truth.
“I had heard that there was never a consensus on this issue. I think any presentation that there had been was always somewhat of an obvious bit of propaganda.”
That’s the way I feel about global WARMING. Al Gore’s consensus is propaganda.
Or can’t I use your words in my own context?
#9 – predictably – Googles his way through almost everything but peer-reviewed sources. That requires not only a bit more work; but, competency within the field, dude.
Good enough for Friday night at the American Legion bar; but, that’s about all.
Grog,
Don’t you think you’re a bit late to the party???:) Global Cooling wasn’t championed by the Conservatives was it?
In 30 years we’ll be talking about the how there really wasn’t strong evidence that global warming was what we thought it was.
🙂
I don’t understand the fear mongering of the Al Gores. The arguments they’re making make them look stupid because they’re relying on the science your local weather man relies on, and how much respect do those guys get for being accurate? Not much, they’re known for being about as accurate as tribal shaman.
No one want’s pollution and focusing on the reduction in the rain forest which converts CO2 into Oxygen makes more sense too me.
“Newsweek, Time, The New York Times and National Geographic published articles at the time speculating on the causes of the unusual cold and about the possibility of a new ice age.”
These were and still are respected news outlets. Do you think it is fair to expect the average or even above average person to read peer review journals that are in a field they are not part of?
#11 – Doo-dad,
Of course you can use my words. I’m more likely to notice that you have done so if you reference my post. But, I noticed this time.
As for your statement, I really do think it shows that you are not really sticking to peer reviewed or articles even popular publications that reference specific peer reviewed articles.
But, hey, what do I know? I’ve only read a few dozen peer reviewed articles, a text book, and a full length book that referenced a great many peer reviewed articles.
And, I’ve gone to a number of lectures at the New York Academy of Sciences, The American Museum of Natural History, The Hayden Planetarium, Columbia University, and a few other institutions.
Of course, I do admit that none of this makes me a climate scientist. I suspect that you are not either.
So, believe what you want, I guess. It’s only the survival of humanity and most other species on the planet that we’re betting on the outcome of the discussion.
And, minor point, but everything we need to do for global warming is something we need to do anyway. Fossil fuels will run out, even coal. The environment is getting hugely degraded from mining and drilling and the inevitable and freqoil. Terrorists are being supported directly by oil money. The air is so polluted that the asthma rates are enormous, especially in cities, which is where more and more people are moving toward.
But sure, believe what you want. It’s not as if the huge downsides to doing so are that major, right?
Dang, I was still editing the penultimate paragraph. It should read:
And, minor point, but everything we need to do for global warming is something we need to do anyway. Fossil fuels will run out, even coal. The environment is getting hugely degraded from mining and drilling and the inevitable and frequent oil spills. Terrorists are being supported directly by oil money. The air is so polluted that the asthma rates are enormous, especially in cities, which is where more and more people are moving toward.
#12 moss. “Googles his way through almost everything but peer-reviewed sources. That requires not only a bit more work.”
Oh, you mean like actually go to the footnote sources provided in the article. Let’s start with
“Variations in the Earth’s Orbit: Pacemaker of the Ice Ages” J. D. Hays, John Imbrie, and N. J. Shackleton
http://tinyurl.com/ywaysx
and its nearly 100 citations. I’ll let you read the paper and check the next one.
Btw, I had no idea that the simple number of peer reviewed studies determines truth.
RBG
@#14 Breetai “focusing on the reduction in the rain forest”
That’s a lie the gullible media told us.
Most of the world’s CO2 is converted into oxygen by algae in the worlds oceans.
If the world depended on forests for oxygen, we’d have been dead a long time ago.
The “rain forest” myth was a nice lie to popularize “saving the rain forests”, which only proves there is important place for real science in our world.
#18 proves his own sophistry. I wouldn’t expect him to have read anything cited.
Meanwhile, if anyone here wishes to nudge the old gray cells by checking out antideluvian computational analysis revisited – the folks at the American Meteorological Society offer up a recreation of early attempts (1950) at computer modeling using ENIAC:
http://tinyurl.com/22z23c
There’s a 5mb .pdf available.
If you gather 100 believers to peer review each others work,what do you think the result will be? Especially when studying a “crisis” is how you get the most funding.
The downside to doing what “we need to do anyway” is only the complete collapse of the world economy and 21st century way of life.
Who says oil will run out? Modern theory says oil is not biological in origin but rather abiotic and self-renewing.
http://www.gasresources.net/ (follow the links)
Terrorists are supported by oil because we refuse to use our own resources. Not only do we need to drill but we need to increase refining capacity that was deliberatly cut by Big Oil to keep prices up.
Add: for the science-impaired …
CO2 is NEVER converted to oxygen by any plants.
The CO2 becomes part of a sugar molecule and the oxygen (O2) released comes from 2 required water molecules for this process.
The death of a plant effectively undoes all of the net CO2 absorbed.
As a result, the only way to reduce CO2 in the atmosphere is to increase plant-life biomass.
#14 – Breetai,
I think you are misunderstanding a crucial difference between weather and climate.
Here’s a quote from me in response to a very similar comment on another thread from September 9th that I believe still states the issue quite well.
The data about Mercury and Earth is paraphrased from a climate text book called Is the Temperature Rising: The Uncertain Science of Global Warming by S. George Philander.
As for predicting the weather, remember:
Climate is what you expect.
Weather is what you get.
Weather is also a local phenomenon and is very difficult to predict. In fact, predicting the specific local effects of climate change is extremely difficult for all of the reasons you mention. However, predicting the overall climate, the global mean temperature, is not very difficult at all.
Think about why Venus is warmer than Earth. Despite its dramatically higher albedo than Earth’s, making it actually receive less Sun at the surface than Earth even though it’s closer to the sun, it is much hotter than Earth. Why? Because of runaway greenhouse effects. It has much higher carbon dioxide than Earth.
Why is Earth’s surface temperature a balmy average 15 degrees Celsius rather than a cold -18 degrees Celsius as would otherwise be expected based on the amount of Sun that reaches our planet? Because of greenhouse gases.
How is it that anyone could believe that the Earth will not be warmed by adding more greenhouse gases? I can’t imagine.
Don’t forget the OISM Petition – it’s only been signed by 19000 scientists: http://www.oism.org/pproject/
#3 – It’s cold there precisely because of global warming. The warming models predict cold.
Peer Reviewed: http://www.oism.org/pproject/s33p36.htm
For those who don’t want to read the whole thing:
CONCLUSIONS
There are no experimental data to support the hypothesis that increases in human hydrocarbon use or in atmospheric carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases are causing or can be expected to cause unfavorable changes in global temperatures, weather, or landscape. There is no reason to limit human production of CO2, CH4, and other minor greenhouse gases as has been proposed (82,83,97,123).
We also need not worry about environmental calamities even if the current natural warming trend continues. The Earth has been much warmer during the past 3,000 years without catastrophic effects. Warmer weather extends growing seasons and generally improves the habitability of colder regions.
As coal, oil, and natural gas are used to feed and lift from poverty vast numbers of people across the globe, more CO2 will be released into the atmosphere. This will help to maintain and improve the health, longevity, prosperity, and productivity of all people.
The United States and other countries need to produce more energy, not less. The most practical, economical, and environmentally sound methods available are hydrocarbon and nuclear technologies.
Human use of coal, oil, and natural gas has not harmfully warmed the Earth, and the extrapolation of current trends shows that it will not do so in the foreseeable future. The CO2 produced does, however, accelerate the growth rates of plants and also permits plants to grow in drier regions. Animal life, which depends upon plants, also flourishes, and the diversity of plant and animal life is increased.
Human activities are producing part of the rise in CO2 in the atmosphere. Mankind is moving the carbon in coal, oil, and natural gas from below ground to the atmosphere, where it is available for conversion into living things. We are living in an increasingly lush environment of plants and animals as a result of this CO2 increase. Our children will therefore enjoy an Earth with far more plant and animal life than that with which we now are blessed.
#7, Well, I sure didn’t hear any of it, or recall it. Looks like you are right, though.
Per Wiki:
Partisan Use
The fairness doctrine has been used by various liberal administrations to harass political opponents on the radio. Bill Ruder, Assistant Secretary of Commerce in the Kennedy administration, acknowledged that “Our massive strategy [in the early 1960s] was to use the Fairness Doctrine to challenge and harass right-wing broadcasters and hope that the challenges would be so costly to them that they would be inhibited and decide it was too expensive to continue.” [6] Former Kennedy FCC staffer Martin Firestone wrote a memo to the Democratic National Committee on strategies to combat small rural radio stations unfriendly to Democrats:
The right-wingers operate on a strictly cash basis and it is for this reason that they are carried by so many small stations. Were our efforts to be continued on a year-round basis, we would find that many of these stations would consider the broadcasts of these programs bothersome and burdensome (especially if they are ultimately required to give us free time) and would start dropping the programs from their broadcast schedule. [7]
Democratic Party operatives were deeply involved in the Red Lion case since the start of the litigation. Wayne Phillips, a Democratic National Committee staffer, described the aftermath of the ruling, explaining that “Even more important than the free radio time was the effectiveness of this operation in inhibiting the political activity of these right-wing broadcasts”.[8]
I was mostly reading Mother Jones in that era, along with Mother Earth News. I’m going to have to see some reprints of MEN to refresh my memory on what was covered in the 70’s.
Bobbo, the basic issue is “what was consensus”, especially as one of the arguments in favor of global warming is that there is supposed to be a consensus today that global warming is real. If the consensus then does not count, then why should the consensus now count?
Personally, I hope humans are causing the planet to warm up. First, we have been in an interglacial for 10 to 15 thousand years (pick your expert) and historical interglacials seem to last about that long (pick your expert). Second, we are due for a Maunder Minimimum in 2020. The first Maunder Minimum is tentatively linked with the Little Ice Age.
In addition, the Wiki article on Ice Age shows several of the previous interglacials were actually warmer than the present.
(I don’t think the local radio stations where I lived at the time carried anything by the Birchers.)
#27–Phillep==we agree. Societal action should be based on the best relevant consensus that can be found. Even if it was true there was a consensus for global cooling in the 70’s THEN SOCIAL POLICY SHOULD HAVE BEEN BASED ON THAT and changed thereafter as the consensus changed. Otherwise–you tell me==what is the societal action based on?
I don’t see how the consensus for human caused global warming that exists now should be doubted in favor of a few oil industry shills and right wing neo-con nut bag radio personalities?
#20 Moss. “I wouldn’t expect him to have read anything cited.”
Okay, it took me a while, but I read through all 100 papers cited and the main paper to boot. I’ll get to the peer reviewed papers after dinner when I can go through the rest of them. How are you coming along? What we do to make a point in DU, eh?
RBG
MrBloedumpSpladderschitt,
You wouldn’t happen to have any statistics on the various areas of expertise of these 19,000 “scientists” now would you? PhDs can be in psychology. PhDs can be in philosophy. Climate science is an extremely complex field bringing together chemistry, meteorology, astrophysics, computer modeling, and a number of other fields. The site just lists a bunch of names. There aren’t even links to their credentials so that one might have a hope of spot checking them. I wouldn’t be surprised to find Fred Flintstone, PhD, George Washington, PhD, etc.
And, the “peer-reviewed article” to which they link is published in the Journal of American Physicians and Surgeons, not exactly my first choice for climate science articles. In science, when challenging the status quo, as should be done often, it is still the responsibility of the challenger of the status quo to make their case.
I for one do not think that a paper published in a medical journal makes a good case against the established wealth of data supporting the position of anthropogenic climate change.
BTW, do you have an answer to my earlier question about how doubling the CO2 in the atmosphere could possibly NOT have an effect on temperature when greenhouse gases are what is responsible for the fact that our planet averages positive 15 degrees Celsius rather than negative 19 degrees Celsius?
#27 – Phillep,
I think you’ll likely find that by the truest standards of consensus, there is no consensus that smoking is linked to any health problems. In science, there is probably nothing on which there is a true consensus.
However, when searching through peer reviewed journals, you will find shockingly few articles challenging whether global warming is real and human caused. What you will find is a lot of disagreement about just how much global warming we are likely to see by specific time periods. There is even some debate about how much we already see, despite the fact that it is a measurable amount.
You will also find a tremendous disagreement on exact local weather patterns expected from global climate change. But, you will find very little debate about whether or not climate change is real and human caused. On that, there is very broad agreement.
In fact, the very location of the article posted here by MrBloedumpSpladderschitt should serve to debunk the myth that there is widespread disagreement, rather than confirm it. If there is significant disagreement, why is it that the only place this alleged 19,000 strong coalition alleged scientists could publish their all-important paper was in a freakin’ medical journal??!!?
A medical journal is not a typical venue for a climate science debate among climate scientists.