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.
@Otter
e.g. we know antarctic ice is increasing
I also checked 10 weather stations in Alaska:
tinypic.com/view.php?pic=2ql5zq8&s=5#.UyGDtz-SxPI
It is cooling there at a rate of -0.55 degrees C per decade since 1998.
So we are currently cooling from the top [90] latitudes down,
You would not see much happening with temps. at the lower latitudes as here you will get more rain here due to (more) condensation and that releases energy.
You would notice the beginning of droughts at the higher latitudes.
I would imagine that you might see a change in cloud formation at the higher latitudes,
those are the bells ringing that the big drought is coming.
According to my calculations droughts on the Great Plains of America will start to get serious in 2021.
A new ice age is forecast! In the 1970s, not really!
‘…in the 1970s he writes, all the climate scientist believe an ice age is coming, but these are all popular newspapers, magazines and novels, not scientific journals…Time magazine isn’t peer reviewed, it’s just as capable of misreporting and sensationalising like any other magazine. Don’t just take my word for it, read the story and tell me where this claim of an ice age comes from…’
As you can see here:-
Meh… was not peer reviewed.
“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.”
Were Fran and Ollie uncredited co-authors?
In 1974, the White House was so concerned about the deterioration in climate, that they wet up a special Sub-Committee on climate change.
I have copies from NOAA of the original memos and the first report.
http://notalotofpeopleknowthat.wordpress.com/2013/09/18/feds-alarmed-by-global-cooling-in-1974/
Don’t let anyone tell you that it was all just media hype.
Sience digest 1973 “Brace yourself for ice age,
ewsweek 1975 “the cooling world”
1974 ” the weather machine”
1971 schnieder and Hansen…..to name a few
The President’s current scientific advisor Dr. John Holdren also predicted a looming ice age in a book from 1971 where he blamed man’s pollution. Ehrlich also chimes in apparently.
Then we had Kukla writing to the president.
Then we had President Nixon.
Dr. George Kukla is still unrepentant and says that ice ages start with global warming!
Here is a reminder of all the other folks predicting an ice age / cooling world in the 1970s.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/03/01/global-cooling-compilation/
Who were the skeptics back then and what did they have to say?
Past data shows the worst weather during periods of cold.
Ad hominems are seldom appropriate, but climatologists have earned a reputation for being slippery and unrepentant. Nothing ever falsifies their theories (beliefs). They claimed the world was catastrophically cooling before it was catastrophically warming but now, catastrophic warming (that ended 17+ years ago) may be a prelude to the next ice age. They have no shame. They’re never wrong. These people are not scientists. The term “climate whore” truly seems more appropriate.
Global climate is much less stable – with greater variability – during cold glacial periods than during warmer interglacials. Due to the fractality of the chaotic-nonlinear climate system, such a difference is likely at shorter timescales also. Higher variability during cooling/ cold periods, lower during warm.
One more reason why the CAGW diatribe, including weather wierding and now every single climate fluctuation of any kind being a harbinger of AGW doom, is nonsense in every possible way.
Ah! The Canberra Crimes – my old home town newpaper, still peddling the socialist line.
John
Thanks Jimbo!
”the present world cooling trend—a total of about .2°C in the world mean surface temperature over the past quarter century.” — 1971 – John Holdren
Where’d the trend go?
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/gistemp/from:1946/to:1971/plot/gistemp/from:1946/to:1971/trend/plot/gistemp-dts/from:1946/to:1971/plot/gistemp-dts/from:1946/to:1971/trend/plot/hadcrut3vgl/from:1946/to:1971/plot/hadcrut3vgl/from:1946/to:1971/trend/plot/hadcrut3gl/from:1946/to:1971/plot/hadcrut4gl/from:1946/to:1971/plot/hadcrut4gl/from:1946/to:1971/trend
This is why no analysis reliant on the data is credible.
Epiphany! The birth of the new ambulance chasers: Climate Scientists! It doesn’t matter if the change is up, down, or stable. It is a man made disaster and we must reverse it!
Anthony,
“Routine mapping of snow and ice fields in the northern hemisphere was started by NOAA in 1967.”
OK, so why do we get no data from this mapping until the satellites went up in 1979? Seems like valuable information…
I am not sure if it was mentioned here at WUWT or another website but the 1982 Sci-Fi novel, “The Sixth Winter” by John Gribin & Douglas Orgill, used the hypothesis of increased polar albedo causing the nearly rapid onset of an Ice Age as the basis of the story. A fast and entertaining read for those interested and it is available for Kindle. After reading the novel, all I can say is I hope that hypothesis is wrong!
Slightly OT and also from Steve Goddard;
Coast Guard warns of bad ice year for Atlantic Canada ships
The Canadian Coast Guard is pleading with merchant ships to plan their voyages well in advance this year as the organization’s icebreaker fleet confronts some of the worst ice conditions on the Atlantic Ocean in decades.
“Plan your voyage and we’ll all get through this,” said Mike Voight, the Atlantic region’s director of programs. “We’ve got a pretty bad or challenging ice year.”
The Canadian Ice Service, an arm of Environment Canada, said there is 10 per cent more ice this year compared to the 30-year average.
“We probably haven’t seen a winter this bad as far as ice for the past 25 years,” said Voight, referring to both the amount and thickness of the ice.
He said the Gulf of St. Lawrence is covered and some areas are “quite severe.”
http://ca.news.yahoo.com/coast-guard-warns-bad-ice-atlantic-canada-ships-173704122.html
Even in the 1970s they were concerned about extreme weather.
John West:
Excellent point. This should be brought up again and again.
Someone in the US Congress should initiate hearings on data tampering of the temperature series starting from the early 20th Century. They could call in John Holdren himself as a witness to testify on that “0.2°C cooling trend in the world mean surface temperature” from the mid-1940s to the early 1970s.
I’m sure you could sell Pay Per View to catch that testimony live.
Kurt in Switzerland
Dear Otter
Please forgive my impertinence but having looked at your photo I think most of the “cloud” is black, dirty, carbon-ridden smoke……Look at the dark bits….
There….got you sussed mate….
Do I really really need to put a “sarc” on this?
co2ers thinking long term now with 2000 year timelines
“according to a new study, published today, 5 March, in IOP Publishing’s journal Environmental Research Letters, that has calculated the temperature increases at which the 720 sites currently on the list of UNESCO World Heritage sites would be impacted by subsequent sea-level rises.
The Statue of Liberty, Independence Hall, Tower of London and Sydney Opera House are among the 136 sites that would be impacted if the current global warming trend continues and temperatures rise to 3°C above pre-industrial levels in the next 2000 years—a likely and not particularly extreme scenario, according to the researchers.
Also impacted would be the city centres of Brugge, Naples, Riga and St. Petersburg; Venice and its Lagoon; Robben Island; and Westminster Abbey.”
http://phys.org/news/2014-03-sea-level-threatens-unesco-world-heritage.html
the media love a good disaster movie story. it doesn’t even have to make sense? or even be probably. Just so someone says it they can report it. Which is why they endlessly print them.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0894213/?ref_=tt_ep_ep20
Above link to episode of “In Search of” about “The Coming Ice Age” with cast list that includes Dr. Stephen Schneider. It was during 1978.
“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.”
Indeed. And there was substantial cooling: Part of the 1970s had 0.8 degrees Celsius lower average Northern Hemisphere temperature than the late 1930s high in a plot published in a 1976 National Geographic. That is not a typo, as alien as it may seem if anyone has only seen CRU / Hansen / ilk electronic hockey stick plots rewritten later implying the global cooling scare happened magically for no reason, like those on the WUWT reference page. The 1976 plot is illustrated about 40% of the way down within http://img213.imagevenue.com/img.php?image=62356_expanded_overview3_122_1094lo.jpg which illustrates the actual double peak history of the past century of temperature (and solar activity). When the next LIA begins, albedo change by rising snow/ice cover will amplify the albedo change in cloud cover. Meanwhile then, the increased temperature gradient between colder-still high latitudes and the little-changing tropics will drive extra storm activity in mid latitudes, as a study found looking at how proxies for how the last LIA compared to the MWP. The CAGW movement recycled the global cooling harm predictions in large part, but the difference is that the [latter] had more of a honest basis.
Typo in last sentence above: latter, not later