Does anyone belive in global warming? 30 years ago a scientist predicted global cooling why the sudden change?

Question

is it the way the world would go without pollution or not?

Answer 1

It`s not just scientists that blow hot and cold!

Answer 2

The same scientist who predicted global cooling are the ones now predicting global warming.

>"U.S. Scientist Sees New Ice Age Coming." It told of a prediction by NASA and Columbia University scientist S.I. Rasool. The culprit: man's use of fossil fuels.

The Post reported that Rasool, writing in Science, argued that in "the next 50 years" fine dust that humans discharge into the atmosphere by burning fossil fuel will screen out so much of the sun's rays that the Earth's average temperature could fall by six degrees.

Sustained emissions over five to 10 years, Rasool claimed, "could be sufficient to trigger an ice age."

Aiding Rasool's research, the Post reported, was a "computer program developed by Dr. James Hansen," <

http://www.investors.com/editorial/edito...

One can guess that there was more money claiming global warming.

The truth is that no one can predict the future.  No one can tell you if it will be warmer or colder 5 years from now.  Anyone that claims to know is just speaking their opinion.  They are no more accurate than a coin toss.

Answer 3

it was a scientist....there lies the answer

Answer 4

I honestly don't believe in Global Warming, the world has gone through warming periods before, and its happening again.  There are lots of reasons why the icecaps could be melting.  It could be pollutants in the water or something. I honestly don't think that it has anything to do with this "theory"!   How do we know that scientists didn't "experiment" and cause the water there to warm up? That could explain some stuff.

Answer 5

But also in 1975 the New York Times said earth was HEATING

Scroll down to where it has the subtitle ‘Effect of Heat Waste’.

http://www.wmconnolley.org.uk/sci/iceage...

The NYT notes concern over CO2 levels and fears that production of energy 'heat waste' will generate so much heat as to have a major climate impact. That did represent an emerging scientific concern of its time.

This is a link to a detailed look on Digg at how the story came about.

http://www.digg.com/environment/The_NY_T...

A quick summary is here:

In 1975 the National Academy of Science (NAS) applied for funds to ‘Establish a national climatic research program’.

Some journalists went to town to try and convince readers this was important stuff.

The NY Times 1975 article was based on the same story as Newsweek’s  ÃƒÂ¢Ã‚€Â˜Cooling world’.

http://www.wmconnolley.org.uk/sci/iceage...

So don’t blame scientists, it was different approaches by (doubtless hard pressed) journalists.

The Newsweek article was written by staff writer: Peter Gwynne.

Not written a climatologist.

Nor is its conclusion – Global Cooling - based on any scientific paper published in a scientific journal. My guess it was a case of staff writer trying to fill a couple of pages in a quiet week for news and trying to make a dull paper requesting funding for climate research interesting.

So blame Newsweek for that one. (They have apologised since.)

As for is global warming really happening?

The tropics have expanded by 2 degrees latitude in the past 26 years.

The Greenland weather service reports that average temperatures have risen by 2.7 degrees F over the past 30 years. The growing season is 2 weeks longer.

The average annual temperature of the  North Sea has risen by 1 degree C in the past decade.

In the last decade or so Japan’s annual average temperature has been between 0.2 and one degree higher than the average recorded in the last 30 years of the 20th Century.

The average temperature in Sweden has risen by one degree centigrade over the last fifteen years, according to Swedish meteorological institute SMHI. In Norrland the average winter temperature has gone up by a full two degrees. Statistics for Sweden show that the country has grown warmer and wetter over the last fifteen years. The country is on average a full one degree warmer, mainly as a result of warmer winters.

The average winter temperature on the coast of Norrland has increased by 2.2 degrees.

Over the past 50 years, the USA’s southwest region has warmed by 1.4 degrees F. Also over the past 50 years, however, there has been a decline in the average snowfall, and if the trend continues 50 more years, Western US snow packs could be reduced by up to 60 percent reducing the flow into rivers. The American West is already experiencing droughts.

In Africa's large catchment basins of Niger, Lake Chad, and Senegal, total available water has decreased by 40 to 60 per cent, and desertification has been worsened by lower average annual rainfall, runoff, and soil moisture, especially in southern, northern, and western Africa.

The two major periods of warming and cooling in the past 1000yrs - Medieval warming & the little ice age - were due to an increase, then a decrease in solar activity. (Sun spots.) There’s nothing comparable today.

NASA reports an increase of solar irradiance in the past 24 years, about 0.1 percent, is not enough to cause notable climate change, but the trend would be important if maintained for a century or more. ‘It is not enough to cause notable climate change.’ NASA. 2003. This has been supported by seveal world ranking (ie nobel prize winning) astronomical institutes.

The link between (and the physics and chemistry of) greenhouse gasses and Earth’s temperature has been proved. Even many sceptics (Richard Lindzen, Pat Michaels, Lomborg etc) accept that. The carbon cycle and its role in earths climate going back 100’s of millions of years has been thoroughly researched and is now well understood.

The onus is on those that don’t believe this to convincingly demonstrate why this is not so.

In June 2006 President G.W. Bush said at a press conference on the subject:

‘The issue of climate change respects no border.  Its effects cannot be reined in by an army nor advanced by any ideology.  Climate change, with its potential to impact every corner of the world, is an issue that must be addressed by the world.’

Answer 6

A scientist?  One?  Who?

Now you can hardly find a scientist who doesn't agree that there is credible evidence for warming due to greenhouse gases.

Answer 7

"a scientist"?  Wow, if "a scientist" was wrong in the 1970's, then obviously every single scientist in the world is wrong about everything they say, right?

Can you name the scientist?  Can you show the actual words of what was predicted?  Can you show that this prediction was accepted by the vast majority of climate scientists in the world?  Or are you merely accepting, by faith, something you read on someone's blog and spreading hear-say?

Jello - editorials aren't exactly what I'd consider credible sources of what real scientists said 30 years ago.

Answer 8

not so long ago scientist thought the earth was flat. . ppl make mistakes!

Answer 9

i thinks they now say its cause the sun is getting hotter i dunno could be a factor of a lot of things including lots of cows in fields farting and letting off some gas of some sort.

Answer 10

Nope! Big scam.

That's why it's now referred to as CLIMATE CHANGE and not global warming and it makes it hotter, colder, wetter, drier, windier....basically a normal range of weather.

Answer 11

Man-made global warming and tobacco's link to cancer are ridiculous, but creationism should be taught in schools.

Answer 12

This is a fact global warming

Answer 13

the people who let us believe in such nonsence, only want to profit from such a scheem ( like al gore ).

Answer 14

The guys who predicted global cooling were just a few lone guys with no good data.  They got way more attention in the media than they deserved, much like todays "skeptics".

More here:

http://environment.newscientist.com/chan...

They in no way resemble today thousands of climatologists, backed by a mountain of data and the endorsement of EVERY major scientific organization.

Global warming is proven scientific fact.  Mostly it's man made.

Good websites for more info:

http://profend.com/global-warming/

http://www.ucsusa.org/global_warming/sci...

http://www.realclimate.org

"climate science from climate scientists"

http://environment.newscientist.com/chan...

Answer 15

All for global warming! It's a natural phenomenon. The Earth and it's natural resources only need to last about 60 more years (enough to get me through the rest of my natural life).

Answer 16

Scientists have absolutely no proof that global warming is actually occuring. Evidence, but no proof.

Answer 17

More and better data! Ultimately, there will be another 'ice age',.It's only a matter of how severe it will be!

Answer 18

Because now we are seeing drastic changes in the weather, melting ice bergs, rising ocean levels. So maybe those guys were on to something 30 years ago.

Answer 19

SOME SCIENTISTS WERE PREDICTING AN EMERGING ICE AGE 30 YEARS AGO.  JUST LOOK AT THE FAMOUS COVER OF NEWSWEEK MAGAZINE FROM 1975.

This statement is often repeated by global warming deniers.  It was even quoted by Sen. James Inhofe, Ranking Minority Member of the Environment and Public Works Committee, on the floor on the Senate last year.  This statement still appeals to climate change deniers because the predictions have turned out to be so wrong.  Climate change deniers therefore conclude that the science of global warming remains unsettled.

A better conclusion, however, would be that one should not rely on the mass media for your science if you can find better sources.

Now, there is an ounce of truth that SOME scientists during the 1970's were predicting an emerging ice age.  Such speculations were the result of: (1) a newly proven existence of ice ages, (2) the realization that pollution could block out sunlight and cool the environment, and (3) that solar output was then decreasing.

(1)  Ice Ages consisting of glacial and interglacial cycles had long been theorized.  Firm evidence of an Ice Age consisting of warm and cool cycles and occurring over the past few million years finally came during the late 1960's and early 1970's in the form of sea sediment cores.  The beginning and end of Ice ages are thought to be related to Milankovitch cycles.[1] or small changes in Earth's orbit and axis tilt.  The orbit of Earth will eventually wobble again and a glacial ice age will begin; this should start to occur in approximately 10,000- 15,000 years or so.

(2) Global temperatures did not decrease during the 1970's, but they were no longer increasing at the same rate as they had been.  During the mid 1970's it became apparent that man-made pollution was driving global dimming.[2]  Pollution, such as reflective sulfate aerosols in the atmosphere, tends to have a negative radiative forcing that cools the environment by reflecting energy back into space before it reaches the surface. Clean air legislation has reduced production of industrial pollution (manmade aerosols) in Europe and North America since the 1970's. These aerosols are also the cause of such things such as acid rain.

(3) The 1970’s were also the beginnings of accurate measurements of solar output. It is now clear that the sun goes through an 11 years cycle of increasing and decreasing magnetic and sunspot activity (the peaks are called "solar maximum", and are followed by a quiet period called the "solar minimum".)  Scientists during the early 1970's had no idea that they were then approaching a solar minimum of an 11 years cycle.

There is a vast difference between what we know today about global warming via the greenhouse effect and what we knew then. During the 1970's, an "emerging ice age" was just speculation by the mass media. There was no widespread scientific consensus. No daily headlines. No avalanche of scientific articles in peer-review magazines. No International treaties and commissions. No G8 summits or UN Security Council meetings on the dangers. No calls for immediate action. Today the science is better, the evidence startling, and the research conclusive. Today there is a near unanimous consensus among scientists that anthropogenic greenhouse gases are the cause of recent global warming.

Answer 20

I think of it this way archaeologists have to dig to find remains

the earth must be growing think about it what covers the remains earth /soil I think its that we are nearer the sun on the surface coal was once trees etc

Answer 21

there has been global warming for millions of years and then ice age's in between so anyone's guess really may just be the cycle of things,global warming is also big business for a lot of companies who sell say lightbulbs, fridges, cars etc. I once read somewhere that if the u.k cut all it's carbon emissions to nothing that it would only take 4% out of the atmosphere yet the government wants us to go green when the U.S and China do not seem to be doing much. Why?

I do recycle and have energy bulbs etc before anyone starts moaning.

I also would say that the pollution in the world is what is causing an increase in people's bad health so having lower emissions is no bad thing.

Answer 22

If you look at the attached graph http://www.epa.gov/climatechange/science... will see that there was a downturn about 1940 and everyone expected the natural cooling cycle to kick in.

However instead the temperature stays readily steady for a about twenty five years.  If this had been a stock exchange price graph I would say that the buyers and the sellers were fighting it out.  Eventually the temperature starts to rise and has been rising for the last thirty years.

My interpretation is that the natural cooling forces were competing with the man made warming forces and in the end the man made warming forces won.

I think you have just made a good argument for man made global warming :-)

Answer 23

Well, you say that ONE scientist predicted global cooling? Now there are quite a lot more than ONE predicting the opposite.  I think it's really just global drying, which will cause both warming and cooling, which means extremely colder winters, and hotter summers, with the moisture staying in the oceans.  Less rain.