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The Coming Ice Age Circa 1977

MrRING

MrRING

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I didn't really see a thread that exactly talked about this (though I started a similar thread long ago in title, the main information was quite different).

So, as I'm watching all the classic In Search Of episodes, I got to the one about the "coming ice age". Apparently, 1977 was a record cold year, and the show was looking at scientists who were convinced that we were on the edge of a new ice age. What was even more startling was that the evidence used looked quite alot like the same kind of evidence used to prove global warming.

Here are the things that seemingly mainstream scientists used to determine the new ice age from memory (interested parties may be able to find the episode on YouTube and double check my last night's memory, like this version http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L_861us8D9M ):

- that up to 1977, the last 30 years had yearly average temperatures growing colder each year
- Ice core samples showing previous ice ages happened abruptly and that conditions in that time appeared to show the ice age was already starting (I believe they did this investigation by looking at the mix of different kinds of oxygen trapped in the water at different levels corresponding to specific eras to show what was going on)
- Earth core samples from off the coasts that appeared to corroborate the ice core samples findings
- An Inuit village where the people who lived there, and the meteorologists who worked there, were all in agreement that things were colder then than it had been in their lifetime.

Since we are talking about the Coming Ice Age belief of that 70's era, was it only confined to a few academics and this In Search Of episode? Or was it more widespread than that? When did the wind shift (so to say) for people to move towards more of a global warming scenario rather than a global freezing scenario? And is the science for this ice age actually correct or were there some faulty assumptions when it was made that invalidates the modern ice age hypothesis?
 
MrRING said:
Since we are talking about the Coming Ice Age belief of that 70's era, was it only confined to a few academics and this In Search Of episode? Or was it more widespread than that?
Click to expand...

It seemed to be all over the place, IIRC.
On the TV and radio, books and magazines. At the time, I came across a few scientific mags that mentioned it.

Then, as things warmed back up a bit, people backed off with the hysteria for a while. Now the hysteria has returned.
 
From _New Scientist_ ...

Climate myths: They predicted global cooling in the 1970s

17:00 16 May 2007 by Michael Le Page


Indeed they did. At least, a handful of scientific papers discussed the possibility of a new ice age at some point in the future, leading to some pretty sensational media coverage (see Histories: The ice age that never was).

One of the sources of this idea may have been a 1971 paper by Stephen Schneider, then a climate researcher at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Maryland, US. Schneider's paper suggested that the cooling effect of dirty air could outweigh the warming effect of carbon dioxide, potentially leading to an ice age if aerosol pollution quadrupled.

This scenario was seen as plausible by many other scientists, as at the time the planet had been cooling (see Global temperatures fell between 1940 and 1980). Furthermore, it had also become clear that the interglacial period we are in was lasting an unusually long time (see Record ice core gives fair forecast).

However, Schneider soon realised he had overestimated the cooling effect of aerosol pollution and underestimated the effect of CO2, meaning warming was more likely than cooling in the long run. In his review of a 1977 book called The Weather Conspiracy: The Coming of the New Ice Age, Schneider stated: "We just don't know...at this stage whether we are in for warming or cooling - or when." A 1975 report (pdf format) by the US National Academy of Sciences merely called for more research.

The calls for action to prevent further human-induced global warming, by contrast, are based on an enormous body of research by thousands of scientists over more than a century that has been subjected to intense - and sometimes ferocious - scrutiny. According to the latest IPCC report, it is more than 90% certain that the world is already warming as a result of human activity (see Blame for global warming placed firmly on humankind).

Update: A survey of the scientific literature has found that between 1965 and 1979, 44 scientific papers predicted warming, 20 were neutral and just 7 predicted cooling. So while predictions of cooling got more media attention, the majority of scientists were predicting warming even then.

SOURCE: http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn1 ... 1970s.html
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There were quiet a few bad SF/Disaster novels about the coming Ice Age around then. There was a good novel ‘The Ice Schooner’n by Michael Moorcock, published in 1969.
 
As it happens, back in 1977 I was an undergraduate studying environmental science, and I was pretty much ambivalent about global warming/cooling; that is to say, at that time I thought it could go either way. My girlfriend and I (now my wife) were looking forward to the return of the ice and the majestic herds of reindeer sweeping down Rustlings Road in Sheffield.

But personally I was pretty sure that the Earth would get hotter over time, because of increased industrialisation; but that was mostly because of waste heat, rather than CO2 (the CO2 would only make the problem worse, but I never considered that it was the most important factor).

If I'd taken the time to read all the scientific literature, I'd have realised that global warming was considered much more likely even at that time; as shown in EnolaGaia's link:
A survey of the scientific literature has found that between 1965 and 1979, 44 scientific papers predicted warming, 20 were neutral and just 7 predicted cooling. So while predictions of cooling got more media attention, the majority of scientists were predicting warming even then.
Click to expand...

I think that much of the blame can be laid at the feet of Nigel Calder, former editor of the New Scientist and author of a popular book and BBC TV series on weather;
The Weather Machine and the Threat of Ice
http://www.amazon.com/Weather-Machine-T ... 0563126469
Although he is quite realistic on the chances of an early return of glaciation (the Milankovitch Cycles seem to indicate that the next ice age is tens of thousands of years away), he is also a confirmed AGW sceptic, and the idea of CO2 greenhouse warming is barely mentioned. This was more-or-less the foremost popular climate book of its time, and I'm sure it skewed perceptions in the public mind, and I'm ashamed to say, also in my mind.

I must be quite clear on the fact that I now think Calder is wrong - we can't use the Milankovitch cycles (and the other effects that regulate the Ice Ages) to predict that AGW will be insignificant in the future - it won't.
 
eburacum said:
...

I think that much of the blame can be laid at the feet of Nigel Calder, former editor of the New Scientist and author of a popular book and BBC TV series on weather;
The Weather Machine and the Threat of Ice
http://www.amazon.com/Weather-Machine-T ... 0563126469
Although he is quite realistic on the chances of an early return of glaciation (the Milankovitch Cycles seem to indicate that the next ice age is tens of thousands of years away), he is also a confirmed AGW sceptic, and the idea of CO2 greenhouse warming is barely mentioned. This was more-or-less the foremost popular climate book of its time, and I'm sure it skewed perceptions in the public mind, and I'm ashamed to say, also in my mind.

I must be quite clear on the fact that I now think Calder is wrong - we can't use the Milankovitch cycles (and the other effects that regulate the Ice Ages) to predict that AGW will be insignificant in the future - it won't.
Click to expand...
Excellent points. Calder, is often quoted as being a 'science writer' and was even, from 1962, until 1966, an editor for the New Scientist. He did much to popularize the concept of a coming new ice age, back in the day and is a thoroughgoing global warming sceptic.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nigel_Calder
http://www.desmogblog.com/nigel-calder
 
That would explain why I was influenced into thinking an ice age was due...I read the New Scientist quite a bit then.
 
I mean, I know a human who, today, thinks that global warming, as a concept, is a social destabilization tactic and that the earth is in fact getting colder. Can't say how widespread it is though.
 
If you discount anthropogenic global warming, the Earth would be getting cooler over time, due to carbon dioxide sequestration. But you can't, and it isn't.
 
eburacum said:
If you discount anthropogenic global warming, the Earth would be getting cooler over time, due to carbon dioxide sequestration. But you can't, and it isn't.
Click to expand...
Yeah, that's the thing. It's like, if you know that that one factor alone isn't what's going on, and the earth isn't getting colder, why insist so hard that it must be and anything to the contrary is malicious? I don't get it.
Doesn't help me convince said person, but then what can you do.
 
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