Real Scientists Did Not Predict Ice Age

by Bill Ray, REP member in Washington, published December 8, 2009 in the Herald, Everett, WA

Regarding the Saturday letter, "Don’t tax us based on bad science":

The claim that "1970s scientists predicted an ice age" is an oft-repeated fiction. There was no such scientific consensus.

The basic role of greenhouse gases was understood by the end of the 19th century, that atmospheric CO2 and other gases trap heat energy.

In the 1970s, science accelerated concerted work to quantify climate effects, such as gathering comparable data over climatological timespans and over the whole planet, or working out the numeric balance in the planet’s energy budget. One of many open issues was the relative role of greenhouse gases trapping energy versus aerosols reflecting energy away. Another was why the current interglacial period seemed unusually long.

The current consensus builds on this work done in the ’70s and ’80s. At that time, many hypotheses were being tested — the normal scientific process. In spite of no actual consensus, a 2008 study (Peterson NOAA) counted scientific papers over 1965 to 1979 and found there was never a year when papers hypothesizing a net cooling came anywhere near the number of neutral to warming hypotheses.

What contributes to the myth is that some authors in the ’70s popular press latched onto the cooling hypothesis and were writing doomsday articles. That was not the scientific community. Major scientific agencies, who are now reporting a strong consensus on warming, were noncommittal 30 years ago; instead they were promoting a systematic research effort to find out answers.