Climate Change: Chilling Possibilities

THE MYTH OF THE 1970s GLOBAL COOLING SCIENTIFIC CONSENSUS

“…However, only one scientist was indicated by name issuing any sort of projection: "Some scientists like Donald Oilman, chief of the National Weather Service's long-range-prediction group, think that the cooling trend may be only temporary." Science News'1975 article "Climate change: Chilling possibilities" (Douglas 1975) mainly discussed the new findings that raised the possibility of "the approach of a full-blown 10,000-year ice age." However, it also put these results into perspective with statements such as "the cooling trend observed since 1940 is real enough ... but not enough is known about the underlying causes to justify any sort of extrapolation," and "by the turn of the century, enough carbon dioxide will have been put into the atmosphere to raise the temperature of earth half a degree.…”