“Another Ice Age?
Monday, Jun 24, 1974
In Africa, drought continues for the sixth consecutive year, adding terribly to the toll of famine victims. During 1972 record rains in parts of the U.S., Pakistan and Japan caused some of the worst flooding in centuries. In Canada’s wheat belt, a particularly chilly and rainy spring has delayed planting and may well bring a disappointingly small harvest. Rainy Britain, on the other hand, has suffered from uncharacteristic dry spells the past few springs. A series of unusually cold winters has gripped the American Far West, while New England and northern Europe have recently experienced the mildest winters within anyone’s recollection.As they review the bizarre and unpredictable weather pattern of the past several years, a growing number of scientists are beginning to suspect that many seemingly contradictory meteorological fluctuations are actually part of a global climatic upheaval. However widely the weather varies from place to place and time to time, when meteorologists take an average of temperatures around the globe they find that the atmosphere has been growing gradually cooler for the past three decades. The trend shows no indication of reversing. Climatological Cassandras are becoming increasingly apprehensive, for the weather aberrations they are studying may be the harbinger of another ice age.
Telltale signs are everywhere —from the unexpected persistence and thickness of pack ice in the waters around Iceland to the southward migration of a warmth-loving creature like the armadillo from the Midwest.Since the 1940s the mean global temperature has dropped about 2.7° F. Although that figure is at best an estimate, it is supported by other convincing data. When Climatologist George J. Kukla of Columbia University’s Lamont-Doherty Geological Observatory and his wife Helena analyzed satellite weather data for the Northern Hemisphere, they found that the area of the ice and snow cover had suddenly increased by 12% in 1971 and the increase has persisted ever since. Areas of Baffin Island in the Canadian Arctic, for example, were once totally free of any snow in summer; now they are covered year round.
Scientists have found other indications of global cooling. For one thing there has been a noticeable expansion of the great belt of dry, high-altitude polar winds —the so-called circumpolar vortex—that sweep from west to east around the top and bottom of the world. Indeed it is the widening of this cap of cold air that is the immediate cause of Africa’s drought. By blocking moisture-bearing equatorial winds and preventing them from bringing rainfall to the parched sub-Sahara region, as well as other drought-ridden areas stretching all the way from Central America to the Middle East and India, the polar winds have in effect caused the Sahara and other deserts to reach farther to the south. Paradoxically, the same vortex has created quite different weather quirks in the U.S. and other temperate zones. As the winds swirl around the globe, their southerly portions undulate like the bottom of a skirt. Cold air is pulled down across the Western U.S. and warm air is swept up to the Northeast. The collision of air masses of widely differing temperatures and humidity can create violent storms—the Midwest’s recent rash of disastrous tornadoes, for example.
Sunspot Cycle. The changing weather is apparently connected with differences in the amount of energy that the earth’s surface receives from the sun. Changes in the earth’s tilt and distance from the sun could, for instance, significantly increase or decrease the amount of solar radiation falling on either hemisphere—thereby altering the earth’s climate. Some observers have tried to connect the eleven-year sunspot cycle with climate patterns, but have so far been unable to provide a satisfactory explanation of how the cycle might be involved.”
TIME Magazine Archive Article — Another Ice Age? — Jun. 24, 1974
Brilliant! Exactly the same arguments were used to demonstrate that warm weather is a consequence of global cooling as are applied to showing that cold weather is a consequence of global warming. Of course, the solution is exactly the same, whether the fairy tale is cooling or warming – present a non-existent existential threat as an excuse for tyranny.
I lived in SW England and Wales from Fall of 1972 through Fall of 1974 (LDS Missionary). I remember being cold and usually wet most of the time. But there was a pronounced draught in the fall of 72 when I arrived, and again in the late winter of 73-74 and Fall of 74. Mostly I remember people there saying they had not experienced so much cold in 40 years. It did intrigue me and when I returned from England I began a lifetime pursuit of climate, astrophysical, astronomical, geological, botanical and general physics studies aside from my regular vocational pursuits. The patterns of change were quite evident and not smooth.
Utah in the U.S.A. in 1983 experienced massive spring heat waves after record winter snowfalls, refilling by flood of some of the ancient Lake Bonneville basin and Great Salt Lake. It snowed in every month except August, including the 4th of July, 1983 in downtown Provo. But after a decade beginning in the late 70’s, it was cklear the climate was warming.
CO2 is not to blame and perhaps I will submit a solid refutation of the CO2 hypothesis as a separate submission to RCS.com for publication as the scientific evidence against it is so solid in so many ways. But for now, I really enjoy the work done by the editors of this site.