from an earlier post in a different thread... of course, it really belongs in this thread:
re: "
the 70's Global Cooling meme":
an assortment of meta-studies have actually looked at scientific publications during that period in question in an attempt to put to rest this meme. Example: the
Peterson et al paper that most authoritatively speaks to what publications existed in the '65-to-79 year' period and what position/findings they held.
An enduring popular myth suggests that in the 1970s the climate science community was predicting “global cooling” and an “imminent” ice age, an observation frequently used by those who would undermine what climate scientists say today about the prospect of global warming.
A review of the literature suggests that, to the contrary, greenhouse warming even then dominated scientists’ thinking about the most important forces shaping Earth’s climate on human time scales. More importantly than showing the falsehood of the myth, this review shows the important way scientists of the time built the foundation on which the cohesive enterprise of modern climate science now rests.
