Steve Goddard tips me to this article in the Canberra Times on May 16th, 1974:
SUPPORT FOR A THEORY OF A COOLING WORLD
It has some interesting claims in it that sound much like climate change claims made today. Apparently they detected large albedo changes via satellite, with a 12% increase in snow and ice in the Northern Hemisphere that started in 1971, and continued through 1974 when this article was published:
Click to enlarge. Source: http://trove.nla.gov.au/ndp/del/page/12217427?zoomLevel=1
They claim that due to albedo changes which help induce cooling, wind, drought, and rainfall patterns will become worse, much like identical claims made today about the effects of warming. The article also claims, quoting Dr. Reid Bryson, there would be increased uncertainty about “stable patterns of weather” that may affect “food reserves”, and he also claimed “much of that change was man-made”. Sound familiar?
The news article is based on a paper by George J. Kukla, and Helena J. Kukla of the Lamont-Doherty Geological Observatory of Columbia University.
Increased Surface Albedo in the Northern Hemisphere
Did satellites warn of the weather troubles of 1972 and 1973?
Science 22 February 1974: Vol. 183 no. 4126 pp. 709-714 DOI: 10.1126/science.183.4126.709
Routine mapping of snow and ice fields in the northern hemisphere was started by NOAA in 1967. Large year-to-year variations of the snow and pack-ice covers were observed. The annual mean coverage increased by 12 percent during 1971 and has remained high. The index R, which shows the approximate amount of energy reflected from the surface by snow and ice under the mean cloudiness, increased correspondingly. Thus, if the cloud cover over the snow fields did not increase substantially, the anomalous weather patterns of 1972 and 1973 could have been connected with the deficit in surface heat exchange which originated in the northern hemisphere the year before. During the past 7 years the largest changes occurred in the fall and in the continental interiors of Asia and America (8).
Two synoptic parameters which could readily provide information on the development of snow and ice cover in the northern hemisphere are (i) the total area momentarily covered and (ii) the running annual mean of snow and ice coverage for the preceding 1-year period. By 20 September 1973 the annual mean coverage was 37.3 x 106 km2, 11 to 12 percent higher than at the same time during 1968 through 1970. Snow cover-fall, the season when 15 x 106 to 55 x 106 km2 of the northern hemisphere is covered with snow and ice, started on 20 September 1973, compared to 17 September 1972 and 5 or 10 October during 1967 through 1970.
The links between the atmosphere, the oceans, and the land surfaces must be better understood before the role of snow and ice can be thoroughly explained and exploited for long-range weather forecasting. But it is clear that snow, hitherto almost overlooked in synoptic meteorological reports, must be important in the mechanism of weather changes.
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Back then, even the BBC was certain enough to bring in Dr. Kukla for an interview to explain how global cooling was a danger for the future.
And others were still talking about a coming ice age in 1977:
The more things change, the more they stay the same.
Thank you. Good bit of news. As we see the solar sunspot minimum take affect, the winters should be longer, more severe to those 40 degrees North and South of the Equator towards the Polar Ice Caps. As already expressed by other experts, this will dig into crops and farm animal populations.
That’s the down side of this. Fewer buffets maybe.
Ah! The days of Gough Whitlam!!!
Well as the sun slows down and we go into a possible little ice age, they can recycle the alarm rhetoric from the 1970’s. Very sustainable.
The reality is that a cooling of 2C could dramatically effect the grain production of Russia and Canada and then we may well see a climate catastrophe.
And remember that Stephen Schneider told us that a cooler world would produce more variable weather….
“I have cited many examples of recent climatic variability and repeated the warnings of several well-known climatologists that a cooling effect has set in – perhaps one akin to the Little Ice Age – and that climatic variability, which is the bane of reliable food production, can be expected to increase along with the cooling”
Schneider was a global cooling advocate until it started warming up?
Oops sorry should have read the posts before posting.
This is what I remember. Cooling warnings in the 70s. But I must be mistaken, since I’ve been told by warmists that there was no such scare.
If anything, this should be a lesson for those who think we have enough information or a long enough record that we can predict the future. No trend continues, whether it’s up or down, and the real fear is cooling. In the 70s they were certain the cooling would continue.
Coincidentally, climate satellites were launched right when the cooling turned around to slight warming… causing the satellite record to initially show warming.
Amr mazouk: Maaate, I’ve tried to block those Dark Days out of my consciousness, but here you go and resurrect them! Whitlam days indeed. Unintended, but easily foreseen, consequences everywhere. Many similarities to Climate Chuckles.
There’s a feast of climate change disaster stories published in Australian newspapers since 1877 at http://www.waclimate.net/climate-history.html
Speaking of albedo, could anyone spot me their thoughts on this:
The last several years I have noticed something curious about the clouds in our region (southern Ontario), especially cumulus clouds- they have seemed much Brighter than I ever recall seeing. And I seem to recall reading something about cloud brightness some time back, playing a role in cooling (but I could be wrong).
This image is one I took some time back, which illustrates the point
http://kajm.deviantart.com/art/Gates-of-Heaven-266933579
In regards to the above article, Thanks! I am putting together a massive chunk of information about the Global Cooling ‘scare’ of the 70s, in one big article.
The main problem with either subject of cooling OR warming is that there has been no increase in severe weather, only an increase in the hype. Weather has actually been more stable based on actuall observations.
CodeTech
Show those who are deniers (Sorry) of the 70’s Global Cooling scare Anthony’s related link at the bottom of this article.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/03/01/global-cooling-compilation/?relatedposts_hit=1&relatedposts_origin=105083&relatedposts_position=2qqq
Nader’s solution – form another CAGW group! antiwar dems at democracy resort to agreeing with DoD that CAGW is a threat to “national security” – you can’t make this stuff up:
12 March: Democracy Now: Nader on Senate’s Climate Stance
NERMEEN SHAIKH: Republicans dismissed the marathon session and called Democrats, quote, “alarmists.” This came as the U.S. Department of Defense released a new report Monday about the threat climate change impacts pose to national security…
RALPH NADER:…They went all night, led by Harry Reid and Senator Ed Markey in the U.S. Senate, making statements about the documentation for climate change, often called global warming, and the need for congressional action. But it’s got to go way beyond that. The Congress has been an immobile bubble in this whole swelling concern around the country, involving demonstrations and picketing and some lawsuits, but it hasn’t permeated Congress…
And the second point is this, that when you have very affluent people, like George Soros, Tom Steyer and Al Gore, who are really out front warning about climate change, when you have them, they’ve got to come and build a very powerful external lobby on Congress, where you have a hundred professional scientists, lawyers, organizers, public relations specialists descend on Congress every day in every member’s office, in the corridors, in the cafeterias, building a concern here…
And we’re going to ask some of these affluent environmentalists to ante up and start a brand new group, so that Congress is literally as overwhelmed by people on this issue as they have been overwhelmed by the drug industry or the real estate industry or the oil industry…
http://www.democracynow.org/2014/3/12/nader_on_senates_climate_stance_insanity
correction –
should have said “antiwar dems at democracy NOW resort”…
In 1287 AD, all hell broke loose in the Romney Marshes. There was a storm so fierce that the River Rother was diverted from its ancient course.
http://theromneymarsh.net/history/index.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Romney_Marsh
Sixty three years later, along came the official beginning of the Little Ice Age in 1350 AD.
Look at the lists of great storms & great gales during the LIA.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Gale_(disambiguation)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Gale_(disambiguation)
Ah, a trip down memory lane! The alarmists try as hard as they like but history cannot be errsed, not since the interweb anyway. Thanks Al Gore!
Usually the warmists get up in arms about this stuff, saying that there was no global cooling consensus in the 1970’s.
The point though is that there was global cooling consensus between 1972 and 1975 circa. Just not for the whole decade.
love how their mission is to get across the “right” information, not necessarily the correct information:
13 March: DailyNewsOnline NY: GO ART! presents climate change documentary
BATAVIA — The Genesee-Orleans Regional Arts Council will present “Comfort Zone,” a new feature-length documentary exploring the effects of climate change on upstate New York, at 3 p.m. Saturday, April 12, in the Conable Technology Building at Genesee Community College’s Batavia campus.
The film was produced and directed by upstate New York residents Kate Kressmann-Kehoe, Sean P. Donnelly and Batavia native David S. Danesh. The screening (67 minutes) will be followed by a Q&A with the filmmakers…
“There are a lot of things here we take for granted that could be gone, and it would be a very different place,” said co-producer Kressmann-Kehoe. The film highlights how New York residents’ daily lives will be affected, from winter sports to apple picking to gardening.
“If we take New York and we warm it up four degrees, that’s like moving it… to almost Virginia,” said Art DeGaetano, Professor of Earth & Atmospheric Sciences, Cornell University…
“I used to teach my students in introductory classes that when we had climate change issues, that these were things that could take hundreds of thousands of years. We now know from the ice core records that decade time scales can be involved, which changes everything,” said John Tarduno, Professor of Geophysics, University of Rochester.
Arming the community with the right information was a goal for the filmmakers.
“I want to see us do the right thing as a society and we are not going to do the right thing if we don’t have the right information,” Donnelly said…
“The threat to our way of life is huge. Everything we do is completely dominated by the use of fossil fuels. It’s pulling the rug out from under all of us,” said Rochester-based author Bob Siegel…
Despite the serious topic, the film has a light touch. Viewers are coming along on a journey of discovery with the filmmakers, not being lectured at or told what to do. Humorous animated sequences provide both information and relief. The film also explores deeper spiritual and psychological dimensions of society’s responses to the issue…
http://thedailynewsonline.com/entertainment/article_d102b78a-aa23-11e3-ae77-001a4bcf887a.html
Balmy and warm would be great. I know, let’s flood the atmosphere with one of them Greenhouse Gases! CO2 would be great, and it would fertilize the biosphere at the same time. Fire up the barbies!
Don’t give the Warmists any ideas. It would be trivial for them to switch the pea and claim AGC (anthropomorphic global cooling) and blame it on CO2. Remember, CO2 can do anything?
BrianH says
CO2 would be great, and it would fertilize the biosphere at the same time. Fire up the barbies!
henry says
That should be carbies?
Isn’t that quaint? They thought that “six consecutive years” was a trend! How naive. Real climastrologists now know that a trend needs at least 3 years more data than your opponents actually have.
Otter (ClimateOtter on Twitter) says:
March 13, 2014 at 1:35 am
Have they shut down any coal fired power stations there?
Dr. Gifford Miller eh? When will he make up his mind eh?s