Global cooling will kill us all before the year 2000.
The central fact is that after three quarters of a century of extraordinarily mild conditions, the earth’s climate seems to be cooling down. Meteorologists disagree about the cause and extent of the cooling trend, as well as over its specific impact on local weather conditions. But they are almost unanimous in the view that the trend will reduce agricultural productivity for the rest of the century. If the climatic change is as profound as some of the pessimists fear, the resulting famines could be catastrophic. “A major climatic change would force economic and social adjustments on a worldwide scale,” warns a recent report by the National Academy of Sciences, “because the global patterns of food production and population that have evolved are implicitly dependent on the climate of the present century.”
Some subset of humans always love their doomsday soothsaying and prognosticating. They seem to need it to be motivated and give their lives meaning.
In the modern era there are two main groups, those wanting the rapture (May 21st for example) and those wanting eco-doomsday. Just like the soothsayers of old. Nostradamus would be very proud of the Gisstimator himself, James Hansen, Nasatradamnus. The sky is falling, but only in the minds of those that need a doomsday to give their lives meaning.
So, when did evolution stop?
We no longer have the ability to transport food. People only eat food grown in their neighborhood.
a recent report by the National Academy of Science
This report can’t possibly be real. Tony Duncan doesn’t remember it.
LOL That’s funny… or the quote was twisted by the reporter, or one NAS writer speaking off the cuff doesn’t represent….. heh
It is a joke. But Tony Duncan thinks there was no “consensus” about the Coming Ice Age.
“But they are almost unanimous in the view…”
Sounds a lot like a consensus.
It is.
Didn’t someone say there was no global cooling scare in the 70’s?
And there wasn’t except in the media like this Newsweek report. Notice how they take the statements from the N. A.S. and turn it into “news”.
Today’s climate scientists have learned to package their science into ready made headlines for news media (their partners) consumption. They learned that PR tactics add to the research coffers.
Quite a revision of history you’ve got going on there Daniel Packman.
Daniel Packman
You do know NAS stands for National Academy of Science?
The part quoted from the NAS was: “A major climatic change would force economic and social adjustments on a worldwide scale,” warns a recent report by the National Academy of Sciences, “because the global patterns of food production and population that have evolved are implicitly dependent on the climate of the present century.” This is rather obvious. It is the Newsweek article that is saying that the climate is getting colder.
It is true that the Coming Ice Age was not a big in the media, and not given as much money as Manmade Global Warming is. But there was still “a consensus”.
This was never written either:
Schneider S. & Rasool S., “Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide and Aerosols – Effects of Large Increases on Global Climate”, Science, vol.173, 9 July 1971, p.138-141
“We report here on the first results of a calculation in which separate estimates were made of the effects on global temperature of large increases in the amount of CO2 and dust in the atmosphere. It is found that even an increase by a factor of 8 in the amount of CO2, which is highly unlikely in the next several thousand years, will produce an increase in the surface temperature of less than 2 deg. K.
However, the effect on surface temperature of an increase in the aerosol content of the atmosphere is found to be quite significant. An increase by a factor of 4 in the equilibrium dust concentration in the global atmosphere, which cannot be ruled out as a possibility within the next century, could decrease the mean surface temperature by as much as 3.5 deg. K. If sustained over a period of several years, such a temperature decrease could be sufficient to trigger an ice age!”
Just what do you think this 1971 Science article says? It is “first results” in a single paper, not a consensus from many articles. And its results are qualitatively the same as today: CO2 increases surface temperature and aerosols decrease it. It shouldn’t be any surprise that the details of such studies might change with 40 years of refinement.
Hi Daniel,
I sent you an E-mail requesting information about ncl scripting this morning. Did you see that?
I don’t see it in my email. I’m happy to try and help with ncl, but I am far from an expert in it. I look at and sometimes am able to help people to install it in the ncl-install email list. The ncarg-talk email list might be more useful for information.
Daniel Packman says:
May 17, 2011 at 7:59 pm
“It shouldn’t be any surprise that the details of such studies might change with 40 years of refinement.”
True enough. Which is why it is so utterly stupid to conclude that ‘the debate is over’ now. This is still a ‘baby science’ which, unfortunately, has been raised by CO2/carbon tax ideologues recently. With such a dysfunctional childhood it will take a while to restore its sanity.
Here comes CERN. Gee, maybe the sun does matter?
This NAS report doesn’t count because it wasn’t peer reviewed, you know, the fair-and-open-process where climate scientists allowed reports with skeptical viewpoints to get peer reviewed…
Great video! Ed Begley blows up over Climategate. Sweet.