Exploding myth of 1970s global cooling "consensus"
When global warming skeptics set out to undermine the current scientific consensus that the planet is warming up, they often point to a 1975 article in Newsweek magazine that was titled "The cooling world." The story cited research on increasing Northern Hemisphere snow and ice, and other work on the shading effects of atmospheric dust kicked up by human activity, and suggested that the planet was sliding toward a new Ice Age. Other articles, pegged to some very cold U.S. winters in the 1970s, made similar points.
The scientific consensus then, the skeptics argue, was that the planet was cooling down.
"Back then, the 'coolers' had the upper hand because, indeed, the planet was cooling," writes one. "But nature quickly shifted gears ... Needless to say, the abrupt shift in the climate caused almost as abrupt a shift in the balance of scientists who predictably followed the temperature."
Their argument is that scientific "consensus" shifts with the winds of politics and research funding priorities, and can't be relied on as the basis for making public policy.
But in the September issue of the Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society, a trio of authors reports on a study of the scientific literature and the popular press of the day. They conclude that climate scientists were struggling in the 1970s to understand the forces of global climate change, and to draw together the findings of researchers working in a variety of different fields.
There was no consensus yet, they say. But the prevailing opinion was that global warming, driven by the increasing levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, was the dominant global trend and the larger worry for mankind on the "immediate" scale of decades to centuries.
The authors surveyed the peer-reviewed scientific literature from 1965 to 1979 and found seven articles that presented evidence of global cooling, 20 that were neutral on the issue, and 44 that concluded the climate was warming. The "cooling" articles received far fewer citations in other research than the "warming" articles, a measure of which climate trend dominated the scientific thinking of the time.
They also point to a 1979 conference of top climate scientists at Woods Hole, Mass., convened by the National Research Council. The panel sorted through the science of the day and concluded that, despite a great deal of remaining uncertainty, there was enough evidence for global warming to warrant public action. "A wait-and-see policy may mean waiting until it is too late," their report concluded.
"Global cooling was never more than a minor aspect of the scientific climate change literature of the era, let alone the scientific consensus," the paper's authors conclude.
The AMS paper also raps Newsweek and others in the popular press of the 1970s for seeking out and exploiting the "dramatic or new," at the expense of nuance and accuracy. Even so, they found "no consensus" among journalists of the time, either. (In our defense, I'd argue that, taken as a whole, the journalism of that era accurately reflected the unsettled nature of the scientific opinion at the time.)
The authors argue that today's global warming skeptics seize selectively on news clips and quotes from the 1970s to bolster their argument that the scientific community back then had concluded that the planet was cooling. They use their snippets to undermine the credibility of today's scientists, who - backed by a much more mature science of global climatology - overwhelmingly agree that the planet is warming, "very likely" due to the burning of fossil fuels.
The "cooling concensus" of the 1970s, they conclude, is a myth. And "in this case the primary use of the myth is in the context of attempting to undermine public belief in and support for the contemporary scientific consensus about anthropogenic climate change..."
But decide for yourself. You can read the whole article here. Scroll down to the PDF link for the piece by Thomas C. Peterson, of the National Climatic Data Center; William M. Connolley, of the British Antarctic Survey; and John Fleck, of the Albuquerque Journal.
Comments
In fifty years it may be said that the consensus on global warming was a myth, that thousands of independent scientists did not support the IPCC position. It is obvious that then as now there is a division of opinion. The planet has fooled us before and may do so again. I am not an expert on climate change, but I fully understand the complexity of the subject. Drop a feather from a thousand foot sky scrapper and predict where it will land, I believe that problem is simple compared to the earths climate. Anyone that claims to know all the answers is foolish indeed.
Posted by: Don M | October 3, 2008 9:19 PM
Global warming alarmists assure us that the debate on anthropogenic global warming (AGW), a THEORY, is over, and that the world's scientists have reached a concensus. They claim that AGW is real and we're all going to die unless we repent and stop burning fossil fuels. Anybody that questions the "science" of AGW theory is ridiculed, discredited and accused of being bought by oil companies. That is anti-science. When anyone claims the science is settled, that is the time to ask questions. When scientific debate and alternative views are stifled in the scientific community, when grants are only given to "scientists" that support AGW theory, it is time to ask questions. When a conclusion is reached on climate based on one variable (CO2) and observations over a period of three decades while ignoring the dozens of other variables and the entire climate history, it is time to ask questions. Here is the AGW logic: average global temperatures increased (about 0.6 ºC) in three decades. Atmospheric CO2 increased in that time. CO2 must be the cause of the warming. It's terrible logic. For one, that 0.6 ºC increase was erased in 2007 - 30 years of warming erased in one year. AGW theory is riddled with errors, inaccuracies, falsifications and the science behind it is perverted. AGW theory ignores the scientific method completely. AGW alarmists do not consider climate history. They only use 30 years of data and computer models to support their claims, and the data fed into their computers conveniently supports their claims. I am a former believer of AGW theory, but when I started researching on my own I found exactly the opposite of what the alarmists claim: the science is not settled and there is not a concensus. Alarmists wail everytime someone questions AGW theory. True scientists welcome criticism and questions in their pursuit of truth. Many great scientific discoveries were made by disproving previously held beliefs. Einstein disproved some of his own theories; he made conclusions then tested them and tested them and tested them. Why has the scientific method been trashed in the case of AGW theory? Nobody ever has the right to say the science is settled. Not even Einstein did that. If any of the great scientists of the past could see the state of science today they'd be utterly disgusted. Now is the time to ask questions and not accept the conclusions of AGW theory - especially considering the Draconian measures that some wish to take to "fix" global warming.
Posted by: Josh | October 9, 2008 2:20 AM
Two things:
First, I was alive and cognizant in the 1970s, and remember well the "coming ice age", as reported widely in the press and on television. What was reported was reported as "real", and although the use of sound bites had not fully taken over the media, there was - apparently - a consensus.
Second, I know nothing of Thomas C. Peterson, nor of John Fleck. Nothing personal, I'm willing to believe they're well-qualified in their fields. William M. Connolley is, however, a well-known pro-AGW climate activist with a personal agenda and political ambition. His bias - to which he is of course entitled on a personal basis - excludes him from any reasonable and fair discussion. He is not a scientist, he is a software engineer, and a political activist for the Green Party in Britain.
Please bear these points in mind should you read the linked article.
Posted by: John | October 9, 2008 10:51 PM
Science is not about consensus - it's about forming an hypothesis and finding data to support the hypotheses. Eventually this can lead to a theory and fact. At this stage, anthropogenic global warming is still at the hypothesis stage, with little, if any, data to support it. In fact, as I examine the data, there is more to support failure of the hypotheses. For example, CO2 has increased 5% in the past 10 years, yet Earth has stubbornly refused to get hotter.
Posted by: R James | October 10, 2008 4:56 AM
Re: Previous comment on William Connolley
Before you start trashing people's reputations, perhaps you should look at the facts. Connolley is a PhD from Oxford who has published other peer-reviewed climate research.
What's your agenda?
Posted by: CapitalClimate | October 12, 2008 6:18 PM
This article is ridiculous. It is a scientific fact that global average temperature declined slightly from 1940 to 1975. The consensus on this point includes everyone who knows how to read a graph. What was not univerally agreed upon was whether the earth was being plunged into a new ice age just because global average temperature declined by a fraction of a degree.
Newsweak, I mean Newsweek, does not define consensus.
Mark me down as a "true believer" in global cooling from 1940 to 1975" and a "true believer" in global warming from 1976 to 2001, and a "true believer" global cooling again from 2002 to the present time. This comes from knowing how to read graphs from the National Climatic Data Center. The alarmism is totally optional, however.
Posted by: elliot Kennel | October 13, 2008 10:11 AM
Stopping "Climate Change" is like stopping Continental Drift. Humans who believe we can control the climate are flattering themselves and our species. If you can control the climate please start by making all the weekends sunny.
Climate Change is perfectly natural and normal. We are spending billions and billions chasing a ghost.
FACT: We are currently enjoying the end of a warm interval (interglaciation) between ice ages. Our interglaciation is called the Holocene. The last interglacial (before the last ice age) was called the Eemian. The Eemian Interglacial was WAAY HOTTER THAN TODAY AND CO2 WAS SKYROCKETING AS WELL!!! Modern Man was not here yet during the Eemian but if we were some Al Gore type would have been blowing hot air and blaming "human activity."
Thank God the Earth naturally warmed up from the last ice age, because my country - Canada - was covered by ice several kilometers thick about 12,000 years ago. These warm interglacials typically end after about 12,000 years so statistically the next ice age is getting close. Ice ages (glaciations) last about 10 times longer than these warm interglacials. ALL Interglacials come to an end.
We should all be concerned about air pollution and toxic waste, but CO2 is not pollution.
CO2 is only 0.038 % of the atmosphere, and only about 5 % of that is man made. There really is not much CO2 in the air.
CO2 IS NATURAL AND GOOD: We all produce CO2 every time we exhale. Trees take in CO2 and produce oxygen from it. If we somehow removed all the CO2 from the atmosphere("carbon sequestration") all plants would die the same day, and human extinction would follow.
The simplistic notion that “CO2 causes global warming and controls climate” is equivalent to saying “hot dog sales cause recessions and control the economy “. It’s a childish oversimplification of an extremely complex topic.
Lets keep it real, and please be tolerent of disenting opinions based on scientific facts
FR: Thanks for your comments. You're right. We can't "control" the climate, but as you suggest we can and should exercise better control over the pollutants we throw into the environmental machinery that supports us all. And to the extent that we are extracting ancient carbon captured from the atmosphere and sequestered over millions of years by plants in the form of coal, oil and gas, then burning it and releasing it into the atmosphere over a period of a couple of hundred years, that would seem to to me to constitute pollution that we should try to dial back. I would also take issue with the notion that there is "really is not very much CO2" in the atmosphere. True, it's a tiny percentage of the total, just .038 percent. But the number is deceiving. Humans can tolerate up to just 1.5 percent. They euthanize animals with 5 percent. But it's not going to go that high anytime soon, so that's not the point. CO2 is also the second largest species of heat-trapping greenhouse gas in the atmosphere (after water vapor) and one of the most persistent. That's a good thing to the extent that we need to trap solar energy to keep the planet habitable. But as atmospheric CO2 levels increase (up 36 percent in the last century), so does its power to trap solar energy. Canadians may be happy to warm up a bit, but not everyone would volunteer to go along with that plan.
Posted by: Norman G. Smith | October 13, 2008 2:12 PM
Frank - it is the actual pollutants and not CO2 that should have been addressed all along. Using CO2 as the scapegoat shows us that this is purely political expediency and has nothing whatsoever to do with the biosphere (Gaia or the environment).
As to its heat trapping effects, the algorithmic quality of such and its atmospheric lifetime we are still kept in the dark as there is zero recent research that provides evidence. I would be content to have policy fixed around the science, rather than vice versa, but will continue to insist on seeing the data.
The closest I could get to recent scientific research into CO2 levels was; "Data collected on 10 nuclear-powered attack submarines indicate an average CO2 concentration of 4,100 ppm with a range of 300-11,300 ppm (Hagar 2003)"
I guess we need our submariners to be awake and somewhat alert and would assume that 4,100ppm in the general atmosphere is unreachable by humanity based on the limits of oil, gas and coal reserves.
The biggest dichotomy is dropping and fluctuating temperatures, whether the period be now or at any time in the twentieth century, while CO2 levels were, and are, climbing constantly and evenly.
Posted by: Henry Galt | October 19, 2008 6:54 AM
I was alive in the 70's as well. I remember seeing documentaries on TV proclaiming the coming Ice Age of 1978. TV is maintream media, especially then and especially when its the BBC.
Posted by: Edward Metcalfe | October 20, 2008 12:22 AM
There is do denying that we live in the atmosphere of the Sun. Period. That's science we can all agree on. We can also agree that in the last 25 years the Sun has done some wild stuff. From the biggest solar flares ever recorded (during a time when people cried that the planet as warming) to going almost completely dormant for the first time in any of our lives (at a time when we're starting to cool.)
What we should all really be fearful of is when people say they can fix the problem to any degree by taking money from us. Turn off lights? Sure. Drive less? Of course. Electric vehicles? Great. But taking massive amounts of our money for taxes? Absolutely not. Be afraid, be very afraid.
Posted by: Larry | October 21, 2008 3:32 PM
I do not see the month and day for the photos included in this article. These could be summer and winter shots. Your ommission, Frank, gives me pause!!!!!!!!
FR: Are you suggesting I tried to fake the shots? Please. Glaciers do not retreat and advance this dramatically from summer to winter to summer again. You are confusing glaciers and snowpack. The disappearance of the glacier at the center of the photo would be just as significant no matter which season the photos were taken. What is significant are the years of the photos. Do a little reading about Glacier National Park and the predicted fate of the glaciers there.
Posted by: Sam | April 5, 2009 10:35 AM