Was There A Scientific Consensus On Global Cooling In The 70's?

Question

Many skeptics of global warming theory point to a supposed global cooling scare in the 1970's as evidence that climate scientists don't know what they're talking about. However, a new study of dozens of peer reviewed articles from the period by Thomas Peterson of the National Climate Data Center found only 7 that predicted cooling, and 44 that predicted warming (full story in the link below).

http://www.usatoday.com/weather/climate/globalwarming/2008-02-20-global-cooling_N.htm?csp=34

So what do you think? Was there a consensus among scientists on global cooling?

Answer 1

Global cooling made good magazine articles back then, but it wasn't taken over by the political environmental movement back then, unlike this new "global warming" movement.

Consensus is not science anyway.  Just proves how political this man-made global warming hoax has become.

Since there's no science that proves humans or animals cause global warming you'd think they'd give up on all the propaganda, but they don't.   All socialist ideas have been proven to not work, but they keep trying them over and over again.  Isn't that the definition of insanity?

Answer 2

Limited at the best,but you have to consider the times.A few well know names where thrown around in the following link.The world population on the whole was misled by the media, that was misled by a few prominent climatologist.

Answer 3

yes, they were just ahead of there time. global cooling is now in effect.

Answer 4

No, there was no consensus, but as this study confirms, most scientists were predicting warming, not cooling.

Some scientists based their global cooling conclusions on a combination of a lack of understanding of the Milankovitch cycles and an incomplete surface temperature record.

"Milankovitch's theory suggested Earth should be just beginning to head into its next ice age cycle. The surface temperature data gathered by Mitchell seemed to agree...Mitchell was only collecting data over a fraction of the Northern Hemisphere...Still, the result drew public attention and a number of speculative articles about Earth's coming ice age appeared in newspapers and magazines."

http://www.giss.nasa.gov/research/featur...

Others based their global cooling projections on the fact that human sulfur emissions (which block sunlight and cause global dimming and thus cooling) were increasing at a rapid rate up until 1970, until governments passed Clean Air Acts which resulted in SO2 emissions decreasing worldwide since 1980 (see pages 12-14 below).

http://www.pnl.gov/main/publications/ext...

Since these emissions had helped cause the global cooling from 1940-1970, it was reasonable to assume they would continue to do so had they remained unchecked.  But they didn't.  We would see the same result if we reduced worldwide CO2 emissions - global warming projections would become invalid and inaccurate.

However, most scientists at the time predicted global warming.

For example, Russian climatologist Mikhail Budyko predicted the cooling would soon switch to warming due to rising human emissions of carbon dioxide.

In 1967 James Hansen concluded:

“It became clear that human-produced greenhouse gases should become a dominant forcing and even exceed other climate forcings"

http://www.giss.nasa.gov/research/featur...

In other words there was clearly no consensus on the issue, unlike today's scientific consensus with regards to AGW.

http://www.logicalscience.com/consensus/...

Answer 5

During the 70's, global cooling was the rage. The main stream media was pushing it then, just as they are pushing global warming now.

Answer 6

No, there was no consensus.  It was more of a splinter group of scientists, and the theory was not truly global cooling, but rather certain patches of cooling.

Answer 7

Great article. I've read co-author William Connolly's writing on this before. I'm glad they finally did a formal study and put this to rest.

Interestingly enough (maybe not surprising) the first comment about the article is a criticism by an AGW doubter who also doubts the Theory of Evolution.

Edit:

Hybrid - yeah, there's no science that proves evolution, plate tectonics, or cell theory either.  They're "just" theories right?  ;-)

Answer 8

Anyone who knows anything about science knows that their is no consensus on global warming . Not everyone agrees on this "global warming". As a matter of fact a number of scientists say we are near the end of o cyclical warming period and are entering a period of cooling these cycles happen about every 300 to 400 years according to solar activity.Makes sense to me,sun heats up we get hotter sun cools down we get colder

Answer 9

I don't know if there was a consensus but global cooling was expected to be the future in my science class and in some newspapers.  I remember the first Earth Day, I did a project for it.   My grandfather helped start the "pollution control board" for a major city, boy did he have to fight city hall, literally!  Back then, we all thought the world was cooling, for environmental reasons, and we must all do something about it.  I don't really care if they were right or wrong, the environment is in desperate need of repair.  Just don't put the burden of doing it on the "little people", don't make the poor suffer by imposing expensive measures on their life. We must clean the mess but people come first!

Answer 10

There was no consensus and I challenge any denier to show links to proof. I don't suppose you will get any.

Answer 11

So the question is; if the media has a tendency to exaggerate and sensationalize by  saying in the 70's that global cooling was the consensus,  are they doing the same thing now?

The debate  is not whether  increases in co2 will cause warming,  but will this warming be substantial  and will it be catastrophic?

Answer 12

There was some talk of a new ice age in the 1970s, but I wouldn't call it a consensus. It was certainly nothing like the global warming hysteria we see now. I was in high school at the time.