Right-wing vs Left-wing science

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You mean like a typical Pinko Stinko Commie redistribution scheme? I guess that would depend on whether the energy is transported upward or downward in the atmosphere.

The "climate scientists" predicted an other little ice age back in the 1970s

The global cooling myth

Filed under: Climate Science FAQ Greenhouse gases Instrumental Record Paleoclimate— william @ 14 January 2005 - ()

Every now and again, the myth that “we shouldn’t believe global warming predictions now, because in the 1970′s they were predicting an ice age and/or cooling” surfaces. Recently, George Will mentioned it in his column (see Will-full ignorance) and the egregious Crichton manages to say “in the 1970′s all the climate scientists believed an ice age was coming” (see Michael Crichton’s State of Confusion ). You can find it in various other places too [here, mildly here, etc]. But its not an argument used by respectable and knowledgeable skeptics, because it crumbles under analysis. That doesn’t stop it repeatedly cropping up in newsgroups though.


I should clarify that I’m talking about predictions in the scientific press. There were some regrettable things published in the popular press (e.g. Newsweek; though National Geographic did better). But we’re only responsible for the scientific press. If you want to look at an analysis of various papers that mention the subject, then try http://www.wmconnolley.org.uk/sci/iceage/.

Where does the myth come from? Naturally enough, there is a kernel of truth behind it all. Firstly, there was a trend of cooling from the 40′s to the 70′s (although that needs to be qualified, as hemispheric or global temperature datasets were only just beginning to be assembled then). But people were well aware that extrapolating such a short trend was a mistake (Mason, 1976) . Secondly, it was becoming clear that ice ages followed a regular pattern and that interglacials (such as we are now in) were much shorter that the full glacial periods in between. Somehow this seems to have morphed (perhaps more in the popular mind than elsewhere) into the idea that the next ice age was predicatable and imminent. Thirdly, there were concerns about the relative magnitudes of aerosol forcing (cooling) and CO2 forcing (warming), although this latter strand seems to have been short lived.

The state of the science at the time (say, the mid 1970′s), based on reading the papers is, in summary: “…we do not have a good quantitative understanding of our climate machine and what determines its course. Without the fundamental understanding, it does not seem possible to predict climate…” (which is taken directly from NAS, 1975). In a bit more detail, people were aware of various forcing mechanisms – the ice age cycle; CO2 warming; aerosol cooling – but didn’t know which would be dominant in the near future. By the end of the 1970′s, though, it had become clear that CO2 warming would probably be dominant; that conclusion has subsequently strengthened.

The climate debate is really too complicated to explain in one thread. I spent a good year or so doing a few courses about climate change/environmental geography. Don't expect to convince anybody with a few paragraphs. Its one of those things that are tl;dr to most people yet they are still willing to assert that its phoney without doing the hard research those who support it (those who aren't blindly supporting it, that is) do

Yeaahh I've done some google searches on climate change/global warming and I dunno wtf to think at all. There's way too many factors involved. But apparently there's an overwhelming scientific consensus on it being true.

Even after committing a lot of time to it I am still skeptical of some claims. Its always healthy to be skeptical. For instance I find it annoying that the time-scale that is often asserted (100 years? 20 years? 10,000 years?) doesn't seem to be consistent among many climate scientists. On the other hand, most of the skeptic scientists research is really not very good, and I don't trust oil companies to do honest research on the subject in general. Honestly I feel that a lot of the doomsaying is coming from media outlets putting words into scientists' mouths or using claims out of context- (conveniently also funded by oil companies, in many cases), because I have read many interviews with the leading proponents and they seem pretty calm about the whole thing

Yeah it's definitely always good to be skeptical. Nothing is too good to go unquestioned. Taking your word for it, it looks like there is considerable scientific controversy, though most of the controversy seems to lie in the media. btw wtf is up with the name change from global warming to climate change? There's something sketchy about that.

The climate debate is really too complicated to explain in one thread. I spent a good year or so doing a few courses about climate change/environmental geography. Don't expect to convince anybody with a few paragraphs. Its one of those things that are tl;dr to most people yet they are still willing to assert that its phoney without doing the hard research those who support it (those who aren't blindly supporting it, that is) do

The "climate scientists" predicted an other little ice age back in the 1970s

The earth has not yet become like the planet Venus and if the North Atlantic halocline disappears because of fresh-water melt Europe will become much cooler than it is.

The average temperature has not risen as high as the "hockey stick" fanatics predicted.

Nor have the oceans risen 100 meters to flood the coasts.

I am still waiting for a disaster. Where is it?

ruveyn

The "climate scientists" predicted an other little ice age back in the 1970s

The earth has not yet become like the planet Venus and if the North Atlantic halocline disappears because of fresh-water melt Europe will become much cooler than it is.

The average temperature has not risen as high as the "hockey stick" fanatics predicted.

Nor have the oceans risen 100 meters to flood the coasts.

I am still waiting for a disaster. Where is it?

ruveyn

I realize that providing ruveyn a source which says his bogus claim about "most 1970s scientists were global cooling believers" isn't going to suddenly convince him that anthropogenic climate change is happening. But the fact of that matter is that ruveyn and others have made this nonsense claim WAY TOO MANY TIMES and, for any impressionable third parties out there, I think it's useful to show that its a BS claim. On another web forum, in 2007, there were a bunch of BS claims about Obama being a Muslim going on the internet. While I didn't think I'd be able to convince people to vote Obama, I did find it useful to link to the Snopes page that showed the "Obama is a Muslim" claim to be bogus.