Despite what NCDC’s Thomas Peterson, Wikiwrangler William Connolley, and John Fleck would like you to believe as a “myth” (The Myth of the 1970s Global Cooling Scientific Consensus), there was in fact serious consideration of the global cooling issue in the 1970’s thanks to this 1974 document from the CIA. – Anthony
The CIA Report and the Warning from Wisconsin
Guest post by David Archibald
In August, 1974, the Office of Research and Development of the Central Intelligence Agency produced a report entitled “A Study of Climatological Research as it Pertains to Intelligence Problems” – available online at: http://www.climatemonitor.it/wp-content/uploads/2009/12/1974.pdf Some interesting bits of the report follow:
“The western world’s leading climatologists have confirmed recent reports of a detrimental global climate change. The stability of most nations is based upon a dependable source of food, but this stability will not be possible under the new climatic era. A forecast by the University of Wisconsin projects that the earth’s climate is returning to that of the neo-boreal era (1600- 1850) – an era of drought, famine and political unrest in the western world.
Climate has not been a prime consideration of intelligence analysis because, until recently, it has not caused any significant perturbations to the status of major nations. This is so because during 50 of the last 60 years the Earth has, on the average, enjoyed the best agricultural climate since the eleventh century. An early twentieth century world food surplus hindered US efforts to maintain and equalise farm production and incomes.”
“The University of Wisconsin was the first accredited academic center to forecast that a major global climatic change was underway. Their analysis of the Icelandic temperature data, which they contend has historically been a bellwether for northern hemisphere climatic conditions, indicated that the world was returning to the type of climate which prevailed during the first part of the last century.” “Their “Food for Thought” chart (Figure 7) conveys some idea of the enormity of the problem and the precarious state in which most of the world’s nations could find themselves if the Wisconsin forecast is correct.”
CIA Report 1974, Figure 7
The x axis shows annual temperature in centigrade. The y axis is persons per hectare of arable land.
With respect to Figure 7, the CIA report states “As an example, Europe presently, with an annual mean temperature of 12°C (about 53°F), supports three persons per arable hectare. If, however, the temperature declines 1°C only a little over two persons per hectare could be supported and more than 20 percent of the population could be supported and more than 20 percent of the population could not be fed from domestic sources. China now supports over seven persons per arable hectare; a shift of 1°C would mean it could only support four persons per hectare – a drop of over 43 percent.
A unique aspect of the Wisconsin analysis was their estimate of the duration of this climatic change. An analysis by Dr J.E.Kutzbach (Wisconsin) on the rate of climate changes during the preceding 1,600 years indicates an ominous consistency in the rate of (sic) which the change takes place. The maximum temperature drop normally occurred within 40 years of inception. The earliest return occurred within 70 years (Figure 8). The longest period noted was 180 years.”
CIA Report 1974, Figure 8
The CIA Report warning on the impact of cooling on the stability of nations is supported by a 2007 study by Zhang et al:
“We show that long-term fluctuations of war frequency and population changes followed the cycles of temperature change. Further analyses show that cooling impeded agricultural production, which brought about a series of serious social problems, including price inflation, then successively war outbreak, famine, and population decline successively. The findings suggest that worldwide and synchronistic war–peace, population, and price cycles in recent centuries have been driven mainly by long-term climate change.
We studied a long span of Chinese history and found that the number of war outbreaks and population collapses in China is significantly correlated with Northern Hemisphere (NH) temperature variations and that all of the periods of nationwide unrest, population collapse, and dynastic change occurred in the cold phases of this period.”
The CIA Report of 1974 drew heavily on the work of Professor Kutzbach of the University of Wisconsin, who continues to warn of the danger posed by gobal cooling. Professor Kutzbach is a co-author of a study that modelled the effect of a 3.1°C cooler climate (Phillipon-Berthier et al 2010). The premise of the study is that using a carbon dioxide concentration of 240 ppm based on typical values reached during the latter stage of previous interglacials, the climate would 3.14°K cooler than it currently is. Of that cooling, 0.45°K is attributed to vegetation effects and the balance of 2.69°K is due to the carbon dioxide level being 150 ppm less than it is currently. The 2.69°K figure is an obvious and deliberate overstatement. Based on the logarithmic heating effect of carbon dioxide, the true heating differential between 240 ppm and 390 ppm is 0.32°K, as shown by this figure:
Figure 3: The logarithmic heating effect of carbon dioxide
In a world in which even papers in solar physics have to genuflect to global warming in order to get published, it is likely that this overstatement was necessary to get this paper published. Viewed in that light, it seems that the authors wanted to warn the world of the effects of a 3.0°C-odd cooling and the only way they could get the paper past the censors was to concoct a story based on carbon dioxide levels in previous interglacials. A 3.0°C cooling is very similar to what Libby and Pandolfi 1979 warned of, and what is predicted from the length of Solar Cycle 25 as determined by Altrock’s green corona emissions diagram, as shown in http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/01/08/solar-cycle-24-length-and-its-consequences/
So what did the study find? Philippon-Berthier and colleagues calculated that as a result of the colder and drier conditions, along with lower levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide (a plant fertilizer), terrestrial photosynthesis would decline by 39% and leaf area would decline by 30%. In the Northern Hemisphere mid-latitudes, forest cover would decline by 60% and grassland area would decline by 17%. In the high latitudes, the area of boreal forests would drop by 69% while the area of polar desert would increase by 286%. And in the Tropics, grass area would decline by 3%, forest area by 15%, and the area of bare ground would increase by 344%.
Adding back the effect of current higher atmospheric carbon dioxide levels on plant growth, the decline in terrestrial photosynthesis would be about 25% rather than the calculated 39%. That is likely to be good estimate of the decline in food production, all things being equal, that humanity has in prospect over the next twenty-five years as solar-driven cooling continues per the Libby and Pandolfi and green corona emissions-derived forecasts.
Figure 4: Total grass (top) and tree (bottom) differences (percentages) from current climate conditions with a 3.1°K cooling (source: Philippon-Berthier et al., 2010).
References
CIA 1974, A Study of Climatological Research as it Pertains to Intelligence Problems
Libby, L.M. and Pandolfi, L.J. 1979, Tree Thermometers and Commodities: Historic Climate Indicators, Environment International Vol 2, pp 317-333
Philippon-Berthier, G., et al., 2010. Role of plant physiology and dynamic vegetation feedbacks in the climate response to low GHG concentrations typical of the late stages of previous interglacials. Geophysical Research Letters, 37, L08705, doi:10.1029/2010GL042905.
Peterson, T.C., et al. (2008): The Myth of the 1970s Global Cooling Scientific Consensus. Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society, 89, 9, 1325-1337, doi:10.1175/2008BAMS2370.
If I may add…the unearthing of this CIA report is due to Yours Truly (following a lead found in an old WaPo article, no less, a request to the British Library for the microfilm, and a long struggle with a very old microfilm-to-paper printer).
This all happened in the middle of 2009. So I ended up having my one and only World Exclusive, which appeared in the pages of The Spectator (UK) and Il Foglio (Italy) on Dec 3 2009.
My blog post for that day: “World Exclusive: CIA 1974 Document Reveals Emptiness of AGW Scares, Closes Debate On Global Cooling Consensus (And More…) ”
(a few days later, I wrote an article for Spiked Online expanding on the topic:
omnologosDOTcom/1970s-global-cooling-consensus-a-fact-of-history-my-article-in-spiked-online/ )
This is why the PDF is now hosted at climatemonitor DOT it, the Italian website of my good friend, TV meteorologist and fellow climate skeptic Guido Guidi.
Another inconvenient piece of historical fact which the Alarmists will move heaven and earth to make disappear.
Thanks Dr. Archibald and Anthony. Indeed, memories are selective. Global cooling scares in the 70s:
(1) Conferences and warnings to governments: See: Implications of the Climatic Controversy for Global Society, Irving Kaplan, November 1980, “In 1972, a sizable group of climatologists meeting at Brown University issued letters to the governments of the world in which they warned of a global climatic disaster.
In 1974, the International Federation of Institutes of Advanced Study issued a grave message to the community of governments from a meeting in Bonn.
In 1976, a meeting of 85 climatologists chaired by the late Nobel Laureate Willard Libby and pioneer climatologist Cesare Emiliani put forth another warning which it had written in 1974 and which provided the same message in greater detail.
Nature reported the consensus of the 1979 World Climate Conference: “that the world had entered a 10,000 year cooling, that the warming theory was complex and questionable and that the loss of life and economic substance to the climate would increase.”
(2) See scientists cited in books:
Dr. Holdren (!) and Dr. Ehrlich wrote in the 1971 essay, “Overpopulation and the Potential for Ecocide”:
“The effects of a new ice age on agriculture and the supportability of large human populations scarcely need elaboration here.”
http://www.zombietime.com/zomblog/?p=873>
The Cooling, Lowe Ponte, 1976, “The cooling has already killed thousands of people in poor nations. If it continues and no strong measures are taken to deal with it, the cooling will cause world famine, world chaos, and probably world war, and this could all come about by the year 2000.”
The Weather Conspiracy, Peter Kilroy, Alastair Clark and The Climate Impact Team, Heron Publishing/Ballantine Books (1977). ISBN 0-345-27209-9.
The Weather Machine & The Threat Of Ice, Nigel Calder, BBC Publications, 1974, “Going by past form, the warm periods between ice ages last about 10,000 years and ours has lasted 10,000 years. One might therefore argue that there is a virtual certainty of the next ice age starting some time in the next two thousand years. Then the odds are only about 20 to 1 against it beginning in the next 100 years.”
Climates Of Hunger, Reid Bryson & Thomas Murray, University of Wisconsin Press, 1979
Ice Ages, Imbrie and Imbrie, 1979, Enslow Publishers
Climate: Present, Past & Future, H. H. Lamb, Routledge 1977
All warned of a coming ice age within decades.
(3) See citations in articles:
In 1975, Newsweek:”The Cooling World” – foretold the decimation of agricultural productivity based on a dramatic decrease in the Earth’s temperature.
New York Times published the article “Scientists ask why world is changing; Major cooling may be ahead”.
I cited this to David Appell on Dr. Curry’s blog in February. He wasn’t impressed.
http://judithcurry.com/2012/02/17/what-if-they-are-wrong/#more-7152
Do the revisionists like WC really think that they can make anyone with a scientific interest, and aged over about 50, somehow completely forget that “the ice age was coming”?
I have a very clear memory of discussing the reasons why this might be happening with a group of colleages, all semi-conductor engineers, mostly physicists, some with PhDs, when I worked with GEC Semiconductors between 1975 and 1980. I clearly remember one of them, who was an amateur cosmologist with some peer-reviewed publications under his belt, describing the latest theory which was that an ice age would start not gradually, but simply by summer not turning up one year in the north, and the impacts spreading world-wide in a very short time (years, rather than decades).
But apparently these events never happened. No such discussions ever took place. Must be senile.
Good stuff – someone (not me I’m no good at that stuff) needs to package it up with a good headline and send it to newspapers around the world like the Daily Mail in the UK. Needs to be couched as a good “they don’t know anything” way.
They only print the warmist crap because they get sent it. Lazy journalists are just looking to fill column inches with the least work possible. We need to counterbalance it thats all.
Given that most wars in history were fought over resources, it only stands to reason that the CIA would be very interested in things that could cause nations to become beligerent again.
And to the detriment of the alarmists, they are meticulous at documentation.
I didn’t see where modern farm yields per area of cultivation are compared to the yields of the past though that may be somewhere in the studies that were referenced.
Still, a few lost crops would wreak havoc on food supplies since the grain reserves are currently very low (months, IIRC from a comment by Roger Sowell last week). It would take some time for food production to move to suitable growing areas. Until then, the wildlife population would probably take a major hit while we do the hunter-gatherer thing until new farms come online.
I hope penguin tastes like chicken or we are going to be in a world of hurt.
[Multiple screen names violate site Policy. ~dbs, mod.]
[Multiple screen names violate site Policy. ~dbs, mod.]
1970’s cooling a “myth”. Yeah right. I was a kid then, and it was the constant worry of kids at school, teachers (especially the teachers), and a few parents. The winters in the early 1970’s seemed to be especially bitterly cold so we all sucked it up, hook line and sinker.
An analysis by Dr J.E.Kutzbach (Wisconsin) on the rate of climate changes during the preceding 1,600 years indicates an ominous consistency in the rate of (sic) which the change takes place. The maximum temperature drop normally occurred within 40 years of inception. The earliest return occurred within 70 years (Figure 8). The longest period noted was 180 years.”
So 1974 plus 40 years…. Looks like that forecast is matching some other predictions especially from the Russians and even Joe Bastardi.
The world already has a child dying every few seconds from hunger and related causes. This may not be a comfortable ride.
It was in the textbooks, I was taught it as a serious issue in my college Ecology class, and the lefties then thought it was just as serious as warming is now.
Turns out, the 70’s folks are more likely to be correct!
I seem to recall something about the CIA and the Berlin wall also. 😉
Predicated on past climate patterns in conjunction with the sun’s activity, all the CIA would have to do is update the report to apply to the next several decades and republish; their concerns regarding the ’70’s would be just as applicable as we head into this new cooling phase.
The Weather Conspiracy: The Coming of the New Ice Age, Random House, 1977, eighteen (yes, 18) authors.
“During the last 20 to 30 years, world temperature has fallen, irregularly at first but more sharply over the last decade. Judging from the record of the past interglacial ages, the present time of high temperatures should be drawing to an end…leading into the next ice age.” — Science And The Challenges Ahead, National Science Board, 1974.
I still remember the 1975 Newsweek cover touting “the coming Ice Age”…
Sorry, Fleck, the consensus was that the warming from the LIA was over and we were either headed for the sequel or a full-blown glaciation.
George Orwell ‘1984’ (1949)
Richard
Don’t forget Naomi Oreskes’s The Scientific Consensus on Climate Change along with your reference of Peterson and Connolley!
This would be a good topic for someone like Donna LaFramboise to investigate. Unfortunately, I don’t have the time, but remember the cooling articles from the 1970s before Keelings CO2 paper came out.
I remember being taught in grade school in SoCal in the early ’70s about the coming ice age. I’m not sure if that was accurate or not, but they sure were wrong about us running out of fossil fuels in 15 years and the country’s full transition to the metric system. 😉
I’m still more worried about the politics than anything the climate is actually doing.
“…the decline in terrestrial photosynthesis would be about 25% rather than the calculated 39%. That is likely to be good estimate of the decline in food production, all things being equal, that humanity has in prospect over the next twenty-five years…”
People tend to blame other people when they get hungry. Rulers deflect blame by pointing at others. Bad things happen.
Great find! Great post!
“We studied a long span of Chinese history and found that the number of war outbreaks and population collapses in China is significantly correlated with Northern Hemisphere (NH) temperature variations and that all of the periods of nationwide unrest, population collapse, and dynastic change occurred in the cold phases of this period.”
That’s the “money quote” and it is exactly opposite of what the Burner Brownshirts have been telling us.
The document itself appears to be genuine and should be required reading for every scientist working on climate change issues, because it shows how far government organizations can jump to conclusions despite knowing so little about the subject.
As today, they had little respect for the complexity of the problem they were posing. They were unaware of what unknown and undiscovered factors were involved, and little appreciation for the poor quality of the data they were using. And yet from all this they came to “consensus” enough to begin work on a massive inter-agency “National Climate Plan”.
The systematic rewriting of history by Wikipedia and “The Team” at RC will leave the world ill prepared to deal with the dangers of a cooling climate. Crimes against humanity in the name of saving the planet.
The large drop in temperature from 1945 to 1975, at a time when human CO2 production was increasing rapidly post WWII was the problem. It didn’t fit the theory and needed to be erased from history. The Climategate emails and the adjustment vector in the source code show this was no accident.
Well, Connolley’s paper states “Climate science as we know it today did not exist in the 1960s and 1970s.” and he’s right. It wasn’t the kind of attention-seeking billion dollar business back then. Even its commercial attachments, solar and wind energy, were nice and cuddly research areas back then, not the subsidized monsters of today that devour entire nations.
The paper states that Polar ice grew by 10-15% in the 60’s/70’s, among other things.
Great stuff. Just love Connolley’s selective memory.
He is one one of the main reasons I instruct my students not to use Wikipedia.
An interesting article posted a few days before Climategate I.
http://fabiusmaximus.wordpress.com/2009/10/21/letter/
Perhaps this is a clue to the start of the hoax.
Reblogged this on Public Secrets and commented:
I remember the global cooling hysteria from the 70s; my feeling is that the global warming… er…. “climate change” movement will look even sillier in just a few years.
http://stevengoddard.wordpress.com/2012/05/10/hansen-cheating-in-iceland/
From report about University of Wisconson:”Their analysis of the Icelandic temperature data, which they contend has historically been a bellwether for northern hemisphere climatic conditions, indicated that the world was returning to the type of climate which prevailed during the first part of the last century.”
LInk above shows how Hansen has been fiddling with the Icelandic temperature record. He is trying to do away with the temperature decline from ’40’s to mid 70’s.
check this out about global cooling
http://www.asianetindia.com/whats-hot/global-cooling-global-warming_296357.html
Not to worry. The Germans (and my fellow Badger alumni) will solve the problem by simply putting more of those proper gases into the atmosphere –
Global cooling rattles food chain
T wires: Friday, March 13, 2009
WASHINGTON — Changing eating patterns linked to global cooling are altering the food chain in Wisconsin and may lead to further increases in greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. The most basic food, bratwurst, is increasing north of the Illinois border reaching toward Canada, researchers report in Friday’s edition of the journal Science.
At the same time, populations of indigenous Germans, which require a colder climate, have increased sharply in that region.
“We’re showing for the first time that there is an ongoing change of the brat concentration and composition along the land mass west of Lake Michigan that is associated with a long-term climate modification. These foodstuff changes may explain in part the observed increase of some Wisconsinite populations,” Marty Monte-Hogg, a marine scientist at Rutters University, said in a statement.
Andy Monhan, a polar expert at the NCAR in Boulder, Colo., said the report ties all the implications of global cooling together in a biological chain of events. “A direct cause-and-effect relationship of the team’s findings is still unproven, Monte-Hogg said, but it’s clear that the changes in brat, beer and human distribution do resemble a chain reaction.”
The change reflects shifting patterns of Germans, beer/brat availability and eating, the report said.
A separate report in the same edition of Science raises the possibility that new eating patterns could result in more outpouring of unfathomable gases in the region, which would include release of methane and stored carbon dioxide, potentially stabilizing global weather to the point of nonexistence.
“The faster the food chain turns over the higher volumes, the more out gassing will transpire, releasing ever higher amounts of CH4 and CO2 to the atmosphere,” said Bob Andersen, a geochemist at Colombia University’s Earth Observatory. “It’s this rate of overturning that regulates CO2 in the atmosphere.”
Information from the A. Press and a Chronicle was used in this report.
I love that last statement: “It’s this rate of overturning that regulates CO2 in the atmosphere.”
Wisconsin! Out if front – again!
(Do I need to say – /sarc?)
This was also covered by Time Magazine in 1974: http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,944914,00.html
One of my favorite lines from the article was (paraphrasing) “Earth temperatures continue to fall and no one is doing anything about it!”
There was no consensus then, as there is no consensus now. There was just the same few shrill type voices who caught the ear of the media, and some politicians. It never caught fire though, because unlike today, there was no agenda or “grand plan” driving it.
Peterson, Connolley, and John Fleck were/are exactly correct. There was no scientific consensus of global cooling in the 1970s – They documented that fact indisputably. This CIA report is based largely on understanding natural climate cycles. There is no consideration on anthropogenic impact on the climate, other than to muse “unless man can alter the climate”. From a macro view, the CIA is correctly engaged in trying to understand the impact of climate on national security and on international social factor and strain on social fabrics. Other than being somewhat interesting, there is no “selective memory” or “inconvenient truth” implication. It’s disappointing to read some of the reader comments. Where’s the critical thinking … the skepticism?
Whilst reading this my subconscious sent up a flag. “Nightime temperatures are warming faster than daytime temperatutres.” There is something wrong with that statement. If there is x amount of heat applied during the day and the starting point in the morning is higher then the daytime temperature will be higher by the same amount.
Despite the CO2-doubling meme being mentioned, no gas of any kind can warm the surface. backradiation is not a factor, and the upper troposphere that is supposed to be heating the surface would have to be around 1500 deg C to heat the surface with the power they claim. In fact, that part of the atmosphere has not warmed as they say it has to, but it has been cooling aw well as drying in recent years.
The trick is that CO2 trapped in a vessel is not the same as CO2 in the atmosphere with all of its convection and lapse rate effects. It is laughable to think that a trace gas with all of its interactions with other gases would have the effect they claim. In the real world, it is more likely that CO2 and water vapor are a wash ding the day but, in effect, serve to cool the atmosphere during the night as they convert heat energy to IR which is then lost to space.
It’s gravity that determines the base temperature of a planet, the solar input that tops that up, and the ocean currents that distribute and mellow the changes.
omnologos says:
May 25, 2012 at 3:17 am
If I may add…the unearthing of this CIA report is due to Yours Truly…..
____________________________
Thank You. Thank You.
I have used that CIA document as a “SHUT UP” more than once for the propagandists who are busy trying to hide the global cooling scare of the seventies.
It is great to have this material found and presented in this manner. Much thanks to all the folks that are doing this work. I did much the same in the mid-1970s and provided context** to an interdisciplinary seminar at the local university.
_____
**North America is uniquely suited to adapt to climate changes of the type noted in the cooling/warming swings. Temperature varies in a north-to-south spatial pattern while moisture varies in an east-to-west pattern. Very generalized, of course. At that time the USSR was the West’s major rival (much in the news) and so, their frequent problems with growing wheat were reported in US & Canadian articles. While the centrally planned economy can take the blame for a lot of the problems, the differences in the bands of temp/precip were (and are still) a significant contribution. In North America these bands cross each other, in Asia they are more parallel. The point being that if cooling does occur North American agriculture will adapt more easily than many other places. Individual farms might need help to do this rapidly but in some cases it will be as simple as planting wheat rather than corn (or some other similar adjustment). Freedom, flexibility, and wealth are also major advantages found in Canada and the USA.
John@EF says:
May 25, 2012 at 8:05 am
“Peterson, Connolley, and John Fleck were/are exactly correct. There was no scientific consensus of global cooling in the 1970s – They documented that fact indisputably. ”
As we disagree with your side on CO2-CAGW, we can then agree that there is no consensus now.
Now give back the funding and the solar/wind power subsidies and we’re even.
Oh.
I forget. We get the right to call the warmists mentally ill; like the warmists call us mentally ill.
Agreed?
John@EF says (May 25, 2012 at 8:05 am) says….
—
The point is that many climate scientists in the 70s extrapolated the mid-century temperature decline and predicted doom. They were wrong. Whereas now many cli…. oh well, you get the gist.
John@EF says:
May 25, 2012 at 8:05 am
Peterson, Connolley, and John Fleck were/are exactly correct. There was no scientific consensus of global cooling in the 1970s –
_______________
You missed the point of what Connelley, et al were saying.
Connelley and friends tried to make the whole “Global Cooling” discussion disappear, as if there had only been a few isolated instances of reports of cooling, when in fact, we were bombarded with scary stories.
Historical revision doesn’t work so well when enough people are still alive to remember what actually happened and can document the facts- regardless of the Stalinesque tactics to make them disappear.
Here’s an unrepentant prophet from the 1970’s
http://calderup.wordpress.com/2010/05/14/next-ice-age/#more-782
I remember well most of this 70’s foolishness about cooling and the pending ice age. In those days I lived in western Labrador. We all thought the cold sayers were nuts and wimps too. Hum, about that we not think of the warmers. The question is a circle or a wave. Anyone want to fund this consultant to find out which?
To: John at EF 8:05 am
lighten up, man, we are just having fun at the expense of the warmistas.
Besides, I was out of college and teaching science in the ’70s, I remember it all… Just another “we are all going to hell in a handbasket” alarmism.
Re world food supply, the USDA (US Dept of Agriculture) publishes data on food grains. See link.
Page WASDE – 506 – 8 shows world ending stocks (stored grains). The final column, Ending Stocks of 457.87 divided by Output of 2197.05 gives 0.208, or barely 20 percent.
Twenty percent of 12 months is 2.4 months; leading to the grim conclusion that, as citizens of the planet, we are in a world of hurt. We can ill afford one bad harvest, let alone multiple ones.
http://www.usda.gov/oce/commodity/wasde/latest.pdf
A serious cold period would greatly impact the inland areas of Eurasia, most particularly those nations which today make up the anti Western Shanghai Cooperation Organization. Not unlike what transpired from the 5th through 8th centuries, the loss of arable land and general stress of a colder and drier climate would make the peoples of those lands seek better places to live and grow crops. It would not be the sort of global bloc power play type of conflict envisaged during the latter half of the 20th century it would be more on par with the vast movements of Huns, Mongols and other similar peoples during the Age of Migrations. Except this time around, there are WMD. The CIA no doubt studied this aspect of things. I hope they still are doing so.
Speaking of alarms, lets look at a few: global warming, global cooling, the population bomb, the atomic bomb, the hydrogen bomb, the dooms day bomb, water pollution, air pollution, droughts, floods, hurricanes, tornadoes, Nostradamus and 2000, 2012 and the Mayan calendar… come on guys, list the hundred I have left out. Where would the news media be without some “Life as we know it is ending.” story.
Lighten up, have some fun, for tomorrow we may die… or not.
John@EF:
At May 25, 2012 at 8:05 am you assert:
Really? They did that?
I can understand how one could “document” a scientific consensus.
But I fail to understand how it is possible to “document” the absence of a scientific consensus unless one wants to claim that finding some documents which dispute the consensus is proof that the consensus does not exist.
And if you want to make that claim then the absence of a consensus on AGW is documented “indisputably” by the existence of WUWT.
Richard
H.R. says:
May 25, 2012 at 4:48 am
I didn’t see where modern farm yields per area of cultivation are compared to the yields of the past though that may be somewhere in the studies that were referenced.
___________________________
You must not have read any of my comments for the last couple of years. Below is a quicky history of crop yield in the USA. We grow 25% of the world’s grain much of which is exported.
So Mr Archibald’s concern is certainly a very valid one.
I would also like to point out that increase in crop yields from GMO crops is not really supported.
With that myth exploded we can then look at the crop yields per acre in the USA vs the advances in agriculture.
One Study shows wheat fields suck CO2 down to ~300 ppm at 2 meters above the field. Wheat is a C3 plant and does not have the increased and more efficient net photosynthesis of C4 plants.
Graph of CO2 from Mauna Loa 1958 to 2005: http://www.mongabay.com/images/2006/graphs/co2_mauna_loa.jpg
From that graph and the US census data showing the export of US manufacturing starting in 1970 one could make a case that the increased crop yield is at least in part due to the increase in CO2 from levels of about 315 ppm in 1958. and the leveling off since 1975 is due to the export of CO2 producing industries.
Think I can get a grant for my study? (snicker)
I have finished my tables with the 45th weather station
http://www.letterdash.com/henryp/global-cooling-is-here
and conclude
\
since 1994/1995 earth is in a global cooling state,
now aproximating 0.1 to 0.2 degrees C or K per annum
I cannot yet say how long the cooling is going to last
– give me some more time and we will figure that one out too –
Wally says:
May 25, 2012 at 4:59 am
1970′s cooling a “myth”. Yeah right. I was a kid then, and it was the constant worry of kids at school, teachers (especially the teachers), and a few parents. The winters in the early 1970′s seemed to be especially bitterly cold so we all sucked it up, hook line and sinker.
________________________________
That is for sure! Nothing like a case of frost bite and almost dying trying to walk home from the school bus stop to imprint it in little minds. (One of my few clear memories of 1966)
I just did a quick search for the blizzard of 66 and turned up this video of a town a hundred miles away sitting on the great lakes that had much milder weather. My town was always ten degrees F colder and got dumped on with the snow from the “Lake Effect” that normally missed Rochester. (I have lived in both towns) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V_bfskNU5OA
Gail Combs says:
May 25, 2012 at 10:01 am
H.R. says:
May 25, 2012 at 4:48 am
I didn’t see where modern farm yields per area of cultivation are compared to the yields of the past though that may be somewhere in the studies that were referenced.
___________________________
You must not have read any of my comments for the last couple of years. […]”
Au contraire, Gail. :o) I always read and appreciate your posts.
I was wondering if the studies the CIA were referencing way back when considered the differences. But you always come up with additional goodies and for that I thank you very much.
Oh, and Roger Sowell chimed in above (May 25, 2012 at 9:55 am) with the reserves info I rememberd him giving.
OTOH, no one seems to know if penguins “taste like chicken.”
Luther Wu says:
May 25, 2012 at 5:51 am
“We studied a long span of Chinese history and found that the number of war outbreaks and population collapses in China is significantly correlated with Northern Hemisphere (NH) temperature variations and that all of the periods of nationwide unrest, population collapse, and dynastic change occurred in the cold phases of this period.”</i?
That’s the “money quote….
________________________________
Amen!
No wonder there is a rush to grab the world's farmland by the corporations and the wealthy and the shenanigans by their paid politicians to get rid of family farms.
Interesting that the World Trade Agreement on Agriculture, was written in 1994/5 by Dan Amstutz VP of the privately held grain trading company Cargill. That was about when The Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO) was defined by fisheries scientist Steven Hare in the mid-1990’s…
However I am sure that few of the top power people in the world ever really believed the CAGW hype in the first place. They just used it, just like they used the well orchestrated food borne disease scare they created by switching to the new 1996 HACCP food regulations.
Politics seems to be lying, deceit and death all the way down and our “elected” leaders could care less how many die as long as there is money and power in it for them.
H.R. says: @ May 25, 2012 at 10:35 am
…..OTOH, no one seems to know if penguins “taste like chicken.”
________________________________
They taste “fishy” and gamy and you have to dig the buckshot out of your teeth…..
(Based on eating river feed wild duck)
Glad you read my posts BTW
@DirkH
Based on the peer reviewed lit from ’65 and ’79 there was a consensus and it was concern about warming, even back then. Of the 7 papers that expressed concern about global cooling (vs. 44 projecting warming), 3 or 4 didn’t even consider anthropogenic factors.
@cui bono
Again, the lit of the time doesn’t back your simple extrapolation comment. It’s certainly not applicable today, either.
@Luther Wu
The Connolley paper doesn’t “disappear” anything, rather documents events of the time. Your comment implies your senses were media driven, not science driven.
@DocWat
C’mon Doc, observe the tone of some of the posts. It’s not all in fun. And, yes, I recall the media driven hype of the 70’s quite clearly, myself.
I don’t want to belabor this exchange. Again, I found the CIA document interesting and their analysis appropriate at a high level, yet not comprehensive enough to encompass the evolving scientific finding/conclusions even of that time. I was commented about The Choir bending interpretation toward liturgy.
From the article: “…this stability will not be possible under the new climatic era.”
It is obvious the AGW movement learned from the past that policy makers are a bunch of gullible morons, and then proceeded to take advantage of their stupidity at our expense.
John F. Hultquist says:
May 25, 2012 at 8:59 am
Freedom, flexibility, and wealth also major advantages found in Canada and the USA.
There, fixed it for ya’
Roger Sowell says:
May 25, 2012 at 9:55 am
Re world food supply,…. leading to the grim conclusion that, as citizens of the planet, we are in a world of hurt. We can ill afford one bad harvest, let alone multiple ones.
_____________________________
You are correct.
We can thank Dan Amstutz again for this mess along with his international grain trading buddies. After Amstutz wrote the WTO Agreement on Ag in 1995, he wrote the “Freedom to Farm” farm bill in 1996. It was later called the “Freedom to Fail” Act. It did away with the US national grain reserves. By 2008 the USDA announced “The cupboard is bare”
The Grain Traders say this about Amstutz: “Throughout his very successful career Dan Amstutz represented and championed the ideas and goals of NAEGA membership “ (North American Export Grain Association) Dan Amstutz did not represent the interests of farmers or consumers when he wrote the WTO Agreement on Agriculture in 1995 or when he wrote the farm bill in 1996, he represented the interests of the Transnational Grain Cartel. SEE: NAEGA: sets up the Dan Amstutz Award: http://www.naega.org/amstutz/index.shtml
The following quotes show the grain traders greed and the level of concern for other humans.
July 22, 2008 letter to President Bush
These are the guys who now control US farming thanks to the “Food Safety Modernization Act” passed during the lame duck session in 2010.
Yet the World Trade Organization Treaty was ratified by Congress with the following prevision.
Anyone who does not think we are headed for trouble in the food department is crazy. However as usual the real cause, corporate greed and corrupt politicians, will be buried deep by a compliant MSM and things like “The Population Explosion” or “Catastrophic Man Made Climate Change” will be blamed. Politicians will then use “the Crisis” to grab more taxes, write more liberty restrictive laws and their corporate buddies will reap more tax payer dollars from the resulting boondoggles.
Ric Werme says:
May 25, 2012 at 5:33 am
Don’t forget Naomi Oreskes’s The Scientific Consensus on Climate Change along with your reference of Peterson and Connolley!
This would be a good topic for someone like Donna LaFramboise to investigate. Unfortunately, I don’t have the time, but remember the cooling articles from the 1970s before Keelings CO2 paper came out.
Donna is busy too.
http://nofrakkingconsensus.com/2012/05/24/the-activist-economist-the-ipcc-part-1/
there was in fact serious consideration of the global cooling issue
———-
Serious consideration being given is not the same a scientific consensus.
The CIA is in the business of assessing security threats. So if someone says little green men are going to invade, they will likely look into it and produce an assessment.
You cannot infer, from the existence of that assessment, that people who claim that the little green men is a marginal idea are liars.
Sorry guys. Yet another logic fail.
REPLY: Only in your mind. I lived through it, and saw research being done on it, saw the news articles and even did a half hour TV program on it. The opinion of an anonymous coward (you) means nothing in the context of the reality of that time. – Anthony
Gail Combs is partially correct. In a capitalist society greed for riches and fear of poverty drive production. A communist society tries to replace that with greed for power and fear of police. To paraphrase Churchill … capitalism is the worst economic system except for all the others.
More pertinent to this thread, I have little doubt that the world’s population has strained the existing infrastructure. Large scale famine is possible. I am not ready to wear a tinfoil hat, but I did just help my son buy a farm. To the point of the CIA paper, people do not tend to starve passively.
It is possible that the last fifty years may someday be seen as the golden era of world history. I hope not, but we should be prepared to survive in a world less hospitable than the one we now enjoy. Whether it is global warming, global cooling, war, pestilence, economic collapse, or some other crisis it would be smart to consider large scale failure modes and the preparations appropriate to survive them.
Every word Gail!
Also don’t forget very greasy, penguin meat has thick fat layers. Given the propensity of various nations to harvest wild meat, did you ever hear of anyone harvesting penguins? That should give a relative meat/fat quality reference.
(I did get confidential advice from a friend back in the seventies who spent two years at the south pole that he definitely didn’t recommend eating penguins. Military Korean conflict K rations were better).
Of course, we can always tell the warmistas that penguins do taste just like chicken, but only during the season when penguins are caught flying as they are least fatty then. /sarc – well almost.
Not much hand-wavy attribution there, so nothing for pols to latch onto. Amounts to a simple warning and call for adaptation. The proper use of the Precautionary Principle.
To John@EF… liturgy, indeed
I call myself a skeptic.
Back in the ’90’s I had a gun store for a few years. Every day some militia kook would come in, stomp up and down, and rant about black helicopters and the UN taking over the country. After one particularly irritating session, I stopped one of them and said ” In the 50 year history of the UN, name one country they have taken over. In fact name one country where they have had any effect at all.” The man looked at me for several seconds then replied. “I see your point.”
Keep in mind that I worked with (not on) the group that built the first computer to accurately predict the weather in less time than it took for the weather to happen. (The Texas Instruments Advanced Scientific Computer, circa 1974)
I challenge any of you, Skeptics or Warmistas, to show me a person, a computer, a program, an organization, anything that reliably predicts weather or climate more than three days into the future.
At the bottom of every financial form (Deep in the fine print) reporting the excellent performance of some institution, a statement to the effect “Past performance does not indicate future performance.”
Yep, sign me up as a skeptic.
“Social liberal” covers a lot of sins; while it represents resistance to certain absolutist attitudes and constraints on beliefs and behaviors in the area of “social morality”, it also spreads out to demands for subsidized “fairness”. That is the door through which its attacks on and subversion of “fiscal conservatism” sally. The demand to pay for all the social liberal’s priorities readily and inevitably morphs into redistribution by direct subsidy and by suppression of productivity and its evil child, profit.
You, personally, willis, may not take that step, but it is hard to keep socially liberal logic from going that far.
As for regulations, I judge the sincerity of their advocates’ focus on functional basic protections by their willingness to tolerate and support universal “sunsetting”. It is demonstrated that incorrectly formulated and enforced regulation is very damaging, so having a way to terminate it is essential — and repeal demonstrably is vanishingly rare. Any that are working to plan and not costing more than their benefits are worth will be renewed (each 5 yrs or so).
AllanJ says:
May 25, 2012 at 1:16 pm
Gail Combs is partially correct. In a capitalist society greed for riches and fear of poverty drive production. A communist society tries to replace that with greed for power and fear of police. To paraphrase Churchill … capitalism is the worst economic system except for all the others….
___________________________
Now if only we could get back to a capitalist society where wealth is invested to produce more wealth instead of more fiat currency being printed to confiscate wealth…. Mises on Money
Capitalism is fine, it is Neo-corporatism I hate.
Gail Combs says:
May 25, 2012 at 5:09 pm
“it is Neo-corporatism I hate.”
A better term is just to call it socialism because thats what it is in the end run.
Brian H says:
May 25, 2012 at 3:24 pm
…..As for regulations, I judge the sincerity of their advocates’ focus on functional basic protections by their willingness to tolerate and support universal “sunsetting”…..
___________________________
Another excellent idea. All laws should have at least one round of a 5 year sunset clause followed by perhaps a ten year clause thereafter.
I would also like to see the “Read the Bill” act passed. We now have plenty of laws and to hear theSenate Majority Leader, Nancy Pelosi state “We have to pass the bill so that you can find out what is in it.” makes me shudder.
If ignorance of the law is no defense. All citizens are charged with knowing the law.” then how can we NOT require our law makers to carefully study the laws and regulations they pass???
temp says:
May 25, 2012 at 5:20 pm
Gail Combs says:
May 25, 2012 at 5:09 pm
“it is Neo-corporatism I hate.”
A better term is just to call it socialism because thats what it is in the end run.
__________________________________
I try not to use the term “Socialism” because most of the ‘Innocents’ immediately turn their brain off. They never see the guy behind the curtain only the “show” unfortunately.
AllanJ says:
May 25, 2012 at 1:16 pm
In a capitalist society greed for riches and fear of poverty drive production.
No, no, no! It’s self interest!
http://ebooks.adelaide.edu.au/s/smith/adam/s64w/complete.html
“it is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker, that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own self-interest.”
Yes, I pointed this out to William years ago. I forget what his response was.
Gail Combs says:
May 25, 2012 at 5:29 pm
yeah its true sadly the goal of propaganda is to take words twist them in circles and make mean everything but what they mean. The “useful idiots” react to the “buzz words” and shut down.
DocWat says:
May 25, 2012 at 3:04 pm
“I challenge any of you, Skeptics or Warmistas, to show me a person, a computer, a program, an organization, anything that reliably predicts weather or climate more than three days into the future.”
Reply—————–
This is my latest attempt, these maps were generated from data that has been tabled and waited since December of 2007 to be made into these maps, same as the older maps on the original site, just higher resolution and a forth cycle (cia 1938 start time) recently added to the existing data base. The today’s map was generated three weeks ago from the same data set.
http://staging.aerology.com/Home/
Watch Cosmos “Heaven and Hell’ from 1979. Carl Sagan, arguably one of the first climatologists that did research on ‘Nuclear winter’ discusses what increased albedo of clear cutting forests, increased albedo of runaway polar caps and all that positive feedback might lead to a very rapid ice age.
LazyTeenager says:
May 25, 2012 at 1:00 pm
Serious consideration being given is not the same a scientific consensus.
The term scientific consensus is an oxymoron. Consensus is a political concept — it is belief-based. You can have a consensus among scientists, such as “another glaciation is probable within the next twenty years,” but that doesn’t make it a scientific consensus — because there is no such thing as a scientific consensus.
The CIA is in the business of assessing security threats. So if someone says little green men are going to invade, they will likely look into it and produce an assessment.
And if enough influential scientists in governmental agencies say that global cooling is imminent and is a potential threat, the CIA will definitely look into it and produce an assessment.
Sorry guys. Yet another logic fail.
You’re projecting. The only consistent logic fails in these threads are yours.
DocWat says:
May 25, 2012 at 9:58 am
. Where would the news media be without some “Life as we know it is ending.” story.
Lighten up, have some fun, for tomorrow we may die… or not.
———————————————————
Too true Doc, and the real ones don’t get much coverage in the mainstream press. See rensedotcom for the “sticky” posts on Fukushima. It makes the CO2 debate seem trivial.
Not ‘turtles all the way down’, just idiots.
There were a number of techno-thrillers describing global war between the superpowers, caused by the coming ice-age.
I remember one, which referred to the existence of a land border between the USSR and Alaska, caused by freezing of the Bering Straight. It postulated that superpower strength would be decided by the number of tracked vehicles, rather than strategic missiles possessed. There were also several science fiction stories set in the future ice age. This just reflected that the assumed imminent ice-age, was respectable, mainstream “concensus”, though it was never described as such.
There is no science in the CIA report.
It is like the ‘Impacts’ section of an IPCC report, speculating on the effects of disruption to the agricultural systems.
But it lacks any explanation of the cooling event event causing those impacts beyond a bit of vague hand-waving at the Lamb type of statistical pattern matching.
If you want to read speculations on what would happen IF climate cooling occurred then the CIA report may be a good source.
But it provides no scientific justification for the initial assumption of cooling – that is taken as a ‘given’ for this report.
You would need to look at the NAS report on the science to asses whether this a priori assumption by the CIA report that cooling would happen was a scientifically justified position. The 1975 NAS report explicitly states that prediction of the future climate is not yet possible and advocates various lines of research to improve our knowledge. Especially the impact of aerosols and rising CO2 levels that were identified as a possible cause of cooling or warming….
The Clean Air Act and other anti-pollution measures reduced the aerosol cooling…..
izen:
In your post at May 27, 2012 at 1:16 am you lie;
The report cites and quotes much “science” with 4 pages of references and particular emphasis on the work of Kutzbach. Indeed, the above article includes a link to the actual report; i.e.
http://www.climatemonitor.it/wp-content/uploads/2009/12/1974.pdf
so anybody can check that you have lied.
The remainder of your post – except for its final sentence – is untrue because it is based on your lie.
Your final sentence says;
And that is also untrue.
Richard
John McLachlan said May 26, 2012 at 8:49 pm:
“There were also several science fiction stories set in the future ice age. This just reflected that the assumed imminent ice-age, was respectable, mainstream “concensus”, though it was never described as such.”
======
Science fiction stories? Respectable? Consensus? What you’re describing is a media driven social meme; they jumped on a story line that could be hyped to boost the bottom-line. The preponderance of actual climate science study of the time was already pointing to concerns of anthropogenic driven warming, not cooling. Again, the CIA report and its selective references didn’t even consider anthropogenic factors, a fact that richardcourtney also seems oblivious to.
izen says
If you want to read speculations on what would happen IF climate cooling occurred…..
Henry says
not IF…IT IS happening already!!
on the maxima we are dropping now by about 0.2 degrees K per annum
(correlation coefficient for the relationship: change in degrees K per annum versus time itself is 0.997 , I think you can bet on that)
on the means we could be dropping this year by about 0.1 degree K
(correlation coefficient for the relationship: change in degrees K per annum versus time itself is ca. 0.95 )
do the stats and the maths
it’s easy
come back to me with what you get…..
http://www.letterdash.com/henryp/global-cooling-is-here
John@EF:
Team Troll really is busy today. For example, at May 27, 2012 at 9:11 am you say;
“Again, the CIA report and its selective references didn’t even consider anthropogenic factors, a fact that richardcourtney also seems oblivious to.”
Say what!?
I responded to izen who claimed “There is no science in the CIA report”. There is, as I explained.
Of course the references in the CIA report are “selective”. That report selects references which pertain to climate change and not – for example – references on the intestinal fortitude of dung beetles.
Read the CIA report. It says – repeatedly – that a cooling trend exists and “the current trend is indeed a long-term reality”.
What have “anthropogenic factors” got to do with that?
Furthermore, izen introduced mention of an “anthropogenic effect” when he made a false assertion about “aerosol cooling”. I refuted izen’s false assertion.
If the CIA report had asserted the cooling trend was a result of that “anthropogenic effect” then I would have quoted it and discussed it as part of the “science” in the CIA report – which izen said did not exist – when I was refuting his assertion about “aerosol cooling” (regular WUWT readers know I would have done that).
So, I am at a loss to understand how anybody could honestly think I was “oblivious” to the fact that the CIA report does not mention an “anthropogenic affect”.
Your comment tells much about you and nothing about anything else.
Richard
John@EF says:
May 27, 2012 at 9:11 am
Science fiction stories? Respectable? Consensus? What you’re describing is a media driven social meme; they jumped on a story line that could be hyped to boost the bottom-line.
Exactly as the AGW hypothesis is being hyped today, and using the exact same argument. Interesting cycle…
The preponderance of actual climate science study of the time was already pointing to concerns of anthropogenic driven warming, not cooling. Again, the CIA report and its selective references didn’t even consider anthropogenic factors, a fact that richardcourtney also seems oblivious to.
“Climate science” per se didn’t exist in the ’70s, and the focus was almost entirely on the *cooling*. The only “anthropogenic” factors scientists were concerned with were lead additives in gasoline and particulates from industrial exhaust stacks — I used to fly DEP reps around taking direct air samples, and they were only interested in particulates.
Bill Tuttle says:
May 27, 2012 at 2:09 pm
“”Climate science” per se didn’t exist in the ’70s, and the focus was almost entirely on the *cooling*. The only “anthropogenic” factors scientists were concerned with were lead additives in gasoline and particulates from industrial exhaust stacks …”
====
Bill, At the beginning of his commentary, above, Anthony Watts posted a link to the AMS report published in September 2008. You may wish to read it. It’s only 13 pages.
clipe says:
May 25, 2012 at 6:10 pm
“it is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker, that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own self-interest.”
_________________________
There is absolutely nothing wrong with providing a product or service to others for a “profit” That “profit” is actually payment for your labor or interest on the loan of your wealth. A good businessman makes sure he is turning enough profit so that he can stay in business, improve his business and if he is smart he strives to give good quality and fair value so he gets repeat business. This is why Anti-monopoly regulation is necessary. To make the system work you need a variety of both buyers and sellers or the balance of power mucks up the system.
Neo-Corporatism, the collusion between large corporations and government, kills captalism by using regulations to kill off the competition and raise the bar so high everyday people can not hope to start their own business. Socialists see something wrong and support more and more government regulation never realizing that the regulation just make matters worse and worse.
In the 1960’s anyone could start a small business with relative ease, child-care, house cleaning, laundry & ironing, lawn care, farming, mechanic… all were available to people with a high school education. You did not need liability insurance or an accountant. Now there are very very few simple businesses left that do not require a lawyer and an accountant to untangle the government red tape.
@- Richard Courtney
“The report cites and quotes much “science” with 4 pages of references and particular emphasis on the work of Kutzbach.”
You are right, I am mistaken…but correcting That mistake just helps my case . I had read it already but had not counted what science there is as there is no scientific analysis of what the future climate might be, just the a priori assumption that cooling could continue into glacial conditions.
Unless as is mentioned –
“Scientists are confident that unless man is able to modify the climate {the northern hemisphere} will again be covered with 100 to 200 feet of ice and snow……”
{looks like we modified it!}
There are two bits of science in the paper, first a basic description of the Earth surface energy balance, ironically they use Langleys as the unit of energy. This contains a description of how the surface is warmed which some here might find controversial…-
“The surface, then, has two sources of energy. It gains 47 percent in visual-to-thermal energy transformation and 78 percent in back radiation.”
The second bit of science is Kutzbach’s contribution on the REGIONAL changes in climate that occurr when there is global cooling {or warming}. As the paper correctly identifies the big factor is the position of the tropical convergence zones. The latitude at which the main convective Hadley cells driven by equatorial heating descend back to the surface.
Of course since 1974 those Hadley cells have moved poleward, not as discussed in the paper towards the equator. So the band of aridity that creates the Sahara and SW US deserts is moving north….
As it happens the very scientist you mention that is quoted in this paper has continued work on regional climate change. Here is a up-to-date take on what Kutzbach thinks will happen now. Things have changes since that CIA document was written. {grin}
http://www.geography.wisc.edu/faculty/williams/lab/pubs/kutzbachetal2005grl.pdf
Simulations from eight climate models and two greenhouse gas emission scenarios are used to investigate changes in the hydrologic budget of the Great Lakes region of North America and the links to large-scale hemispheric/ global changes. The ensemble average simulations indicate that increased net moisture (increased P-E) for the Great Lakes area is associated with a general increase in poleward moisture transport, which in turn is highly correlated with the sensitivity of each climate model to greenhouse-gas induced warming as measured by the global average increase of temperature.
{shorter version- when the Great Lakes get warmer the increased rainfall offsets the increased evaporation. They wont dry up}
John@EF says:
May 27, 2012 at 3:56 pm
A me, May 27, 2012 at 2:09 pm: “”Climate science” per se didn’t exist in the ’70s, and the focus was almost entirely on the *cooling*. The only “anthropogenic” factors scientists were concerned with were lead additives in gasoline and particulates from industrial exhaust stacks …”
====
Bill, At the beginning of his commentary, above, Anthony Watts posted a link to the AMS report published in September 2008. You may wish to read it. It’s only 13 pages.
I read it.
“Abstract: Climate science as we know it today did not exist in the 1960s and 1970s,” which is what I said. I also said the focus was almost entirely on the cooling, not monolithically on the cooling. I also said the only “anthropogenic” factors scientists were concerned with were lead additives in gasoline and particulates from industrial exhaust stacks …” and the AMS paper confirms that: “However, it was generally accepted that both CO2 and anthropogenic aerosols were increasing.”
One point I haven’t seen raised yet is that most of the solutions to the coming ice age back in the 1970s were remarkably similar to the solutions proposed for alleged AGW today, including eliminating the use of oil & coal, more solar/wind power, more “sustainable” power sources and resource use, etc.
Funny how -even when the problems change- the solutions remain the same.
Izen:
At May 27, 2012 at 5:23 pm, you admit that you were wrong when (at at May 27, 2012 at 1:16 am) you had claimed;
Having been forced to admit your claim was a lie, your post (at May 27, 2012 at 5:23 pm) says
Yes, of course “things have changed since that CIA document was written” in the early 1970s.
This thread is about the fact that global COOLING was the so-called consensus in the 1970s but global WARMING is the so-called consensus now.
Richard
Casey Tompkin:
At May 27, 2012 at 10:50 pm you say;
Ah, but the “problems” (really ‘objectives’) remained the same.
In the early 1970s the CIA report detailed the observed global cooling of the previous three decades. But it does not mention any anthropogenic cause for that cooling.
Misanthropes observed the global cooling, too, and they decided to make use of it to further their desire to hinder industrial activity. They proclaimed;
The global climate is cooling and that poses a threat. The cooling is caused by emissions of sulphur dioxide from industrial activity so the emissions must be curtailed.
But the global climate stopped cooling and started to warm at about the time of the CIA report. By about 1980 the warming could no longer be denied, so the misanthropes morphed their proclamation into
The global climate is warming and that poses a threat. The warming is caused by emissions of carbon dioxide from industrial activity so the emissions must be curtailed.
The warming stopped a decade ago and the misanthropes are now trying to morph their proclamation into
The global climate is wierding and that poses a threat. The wierding is caused by emissions of carbon dioxide from industrial activity so the emissions must be curtailed.
Richard
Casey Tompkins says:
May 27, 2012 at 10:50 pm
Funny how -even when the problems change- the solutions remain the same.
Well, of course, since AGW causes both warming and cooling, along with wetter and drier seasons, and increases and decreases in both numbers and severity of storms. It also causes insects and small mammals to expand their ranges while preventing them from expanding their ranges while they are simultaneously increasing in numbers and going extinct.
*koff*
Yup. Their operational motto is, or should be, “Cog Dis R Us!”
LOL
So, are we all agreed here then,
that it is currently cooling
http://www.letterdash.com/henryp/global-cooling-is-here
as it was in the in the sixties up until the early seventies
http://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2010/04/orssengo3.png
However, Orssengo calculated the max. of warming at around 2000
whereas I calculate it at least 5 years ealier, around 1994/1995.
meaning the Orssengo graph must be re-calculated and shifted a little bit to the left.
Does Orssengo still live?
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/04/25/predictions-of-global-mean-temperatures-ipcc-projections/
HenryP says:
May 28, 2012 at 6:07 am
So, are we all agreed here then,
that it is currently cooling….
http://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2010/04/orssengo3.png
__________________________________________
HenryP you should look at the long term trend not Orssengo.
Lucky Skywalker put together a great flick graph a few years ago that shows what I mean. http://www.greenworldtrust.org.uk/Science/Images/ice-HS/noaa_gisp2_icecore_anim_adj.gif
Here is another graph, 200 yr temperature based on non-tree ring proxies: http://www.econ.ohio-state.edu/jhm/AGW/Loehle/
You also should look at Roe’s 2006 paper on Milankovitch: The following is a graph of the June solar insolation at 65N vs the RATE OF CHANGE in ice volume. (Roe’s contribution is rate of change in ice) And you clearly get a spectacular agreement between the theoretically calculated insolation curve (cyan) and the derivatives of the reconstructed ice volumes (white). Here is the graph: http://lh4.ggpht.com/_4ruQ7t4zrFA/TDL7RSCEgZI/AAAAAAAAEGE/0HeA3XYGVmM/milankovitch-roe-fig2.JPG
Another paper mentions the insolation has decreased by 9% since the Holecene Maximum.
And a third paper states:
The evidence suggests the earth is in a long slow descent into another ice age thanks to the Milankovitch cycle orbital changes with decadal ups and downs in temperature due to ENSO, PDO, NAO, changes in clouds and so on. But the overall direction is still DOWN.
Gail says:
The evidence suggests the earth is in a long slow descent into another ice age
Henry@Gail
Hi Gail. Thanks. I have had a look at those graphs before and I understand what you are saying. You want me to get the longterm view. However, I was actually interested in the short time view as determined Orssengo and also confirmed by myself. Does anyone know if Orssengo still has a view on his work from before? Was Orssengo perhaps not his real name?
Even though I know we are currently in a cooling period I am not too worried about a coming ice age as I think we will be able to thwart it with our increasing knowledge. Actually, one of the real anthropogenic activities is that of removal of snow.
This does cause warming as, if it were left naturally, it would deflect a lot more light. Increasing snowcover forms the basis of almost any ice age trap. If we see abnormal snowcover happening on a wide scale at sometime in the future (the onset of an ice age) we can take precautions by covering the snow with soot or perhaps get it to melt by some other means.