A Blast From the Past: “Uncle Walter” Predicts the “Coming Ice Age”
Way back when – e.g., in the 1970s – climatologists weren’t worrying about “global warming”. At that point, the prospect for general global cooling was the big concern.
However, today things have changed. Today, the claim is that man is causing runaway warming of the planet. Most current climatologists (or at least the most vocal ones) blame pretty much any bad weather that occurs – even harsh winter weather and extreme snowfall – on said “runaway global warming”.
Most of today’s global warming “true believers” grant-grubbing tools current-day anti-mankind Luddites eco-whackos climate change proponents don’t want to talk about the fact that 40 years ago the consensus was that man was causing a “new ice age”. Hell, concerns along those lines – in particular, the introduction of small particles into the stratosphere leading to high-level cloud formation and resulting runaway global cooling – was one of three things (along with sonic boom issues and concerns regarding commercial viability) that combined to kill off the US supersonic transport (SST) program in the late 1960s/early 1970s.
It’s understandable that they wouldn’t want to talk about that past prediction. The fact that they’ve done a 180-degree “flip-flop” – and still can’t really explain things like the Roman/Medieval Warm period, the “Little Ice Age” and the much cooler weather of the late 1700s/early 1800s, and the recent nearly two-decade pause in global warming (which examination of unadjusted raw data shows actually likely extends back to the late 1930s or 1940s) leads to an obvious question they’d like to avoid.
That question is, “If you guys were 100% wrong only 40 years ago and still can’t explain all that other stuff without ‘adjusting the data’, do you really even know your ass from a hole in the ground concerning the subject?” That’s an eminently fair question IMO.
Regardless: though you don’t hear much about it today, back in the early and mid-1970s the media reported on the possibility of a coming ice age. In 1972, even the then “most trusted man in America” joined in beating that drum. On September 11, 1972, he reported on that “coming ice age” – based on predictions of one of the day’s preeminent climatologists, Hubert Lamb.
Now, just who was this Hubert Lamb fellow? He was no crackpot – he was the guy who founded the Climate Research Unit at the UK’s University of East Anglica, the same guys who today are the leading proponents of the theory that mankind is causing uncontrolled global warming. On his death, he was lauded by the Global Warming Policy Foundation as being “the greatest climatologist of his time”, and for making “climate change a serious research subject”.
Well, of course those guys would pay him homage, even if he was saying exactly the opposite of what they preach today. He’s almost certainly the one who created their meal ticket – by showing them how to get government funding for their activities.
Here’s a direct link to an MP4 clip of “Uncle Walter” waxing eloquent on the subject. The article linked above also contains an embedded version of the clip. Unfortunately, I can’t seem to get it to embed properly here.
Unlike many TAH readers, I’m old enough to remember that this was no isolated incident. The prospect for a “new ice age” was all the rage in scientific and other publications during the early and mid-1970s. Go take a look at past issues of Science News and/or the New York Times from that period; it’s there. Even the CIA published assessments concerning the possible impact.
Do I know whether or not the planet is warming? No. Neither do I know whether it’s cooling, or if what we’re seeing today is just normal variation.
But neither do today’s climatologists. Calling it “settled science” is pure bull. Until they can adequately and accurately explain the past, their current models are simply not good enough to be considered accurate and predictive. And today, they don’t seem able to adequately explain even the last 20 years – much less previous periods of truly extreme planetary warming or cooling documented in the geologic record – with out convoluted machinations and “adjusting” historical data to make it fit.
There’s an old proverb that’s IMO applicable here. It starts out, “Fool me once, shame on you; . . . . ”
(Hat tip to TAH reader Veritas Omnia Vincit for the first link above.)
Category: Global Warming
Procession of the Equinox “the wobble”.
The earth is moving toward an ice age.
Happens every 26,000+- years.
(The time relates to moving thru one house of the zodiac which is why it is mentioned in the Farmers Almanac).
Very good read. I am not really old enough to remember the hype over the “ice age” theory, I have read some on it.
I have also read on global warming.
There is so much “guess-work” involved in ALL of it whether you believe in a coming ice age or tropical planet.
Best answer I ever heard given was when my granddad was asked about it.
His answer: “well in the winter, it gets a little cooler, and in the summer, it gets a little warmer.”
They were as passionately selling the next “little” ice age as the current folks are selling the global warming…the primary difference being that the evidence seems to support those scientists from 40 years ago…
Thanks for running with this, I thought it would prove most interesting to many of our younger readers as well as some old guys like me…
I used “The coming Ice Age” as an excuse to break up with a chick in HS.
Now that’s funny shit…
I remember this assertion very well; I read it in the news and was taught it at school (I was in fifth or sixth grade at the time). Our polluting our environment was going to send us into a new ice age. Yup, that’s the ticket.
On a related note, I was thinking just the other day of how much more environmentally conscious we’ve become. When I was young, we’d have a paper drive at school maybe once or twice a year, but there was no routine recycling. Cars put out a lot more exhaust than they do today. Now, I put my paper, plastic, glass and metal in a bin and leave it at the curb once a week – it’s so routine I hardly give it any thought.
Spot on, Hondo.
There’s a lot about this planet we don’t know. When I was in elementary school, I remember that the dinosaurs lived a couple million years ago. Now, they’re talking dozens and hundreds of millions of years ago — in other words, the dinosaurs keep getting older. That’s only one example, I could name others. Hell, they haven’t even figured out if eggs are good for you yet. I think we are currently on the “eggs are good for you” cycle. About ten years ago, they were warning not to even look at eggs, because of the cholesterol. And the list goes on. Climate? Pfffftttt.
Pinto Nag, my dad ate bacon and eggs EVERY single day of his adult life (‘cept for when he was in WWII) and lived to be 91. I can’t for the life of me remember how many times the coffee/good, coffee/bad cycle has occurred. Same with wine.
OC
The same crowd that constantly overestimates or underestimates the next day’s snowfall expects people to believe it can not only accurately predict the weather decades into the future, but pinpoint the cause of such weather events as well. Oh, brother.
I remember just after the embargo of 1973 the “experts” said we would run out of oil by 2020. Damn 5 more years!
Also- What ever became of the destruction of mankind via the ozone depletion? Read somewhere- COMPLETE ozone recovery by 2050!
I am confused…but that is normal!
Ozone holes were taken care of by the space shuttle door gunners shooting multi-layer ozone patch rounds by the thousands at the holes during the space shuttle missions.
The ozone has been properly patch started to now complete growth on it’s own and be fully restored by 2050.
Hence the reason NASA stopped the space shuttle program, no more need, the ozone was properly patched to start regrowth on its own.
Are you claiming peak oil is BS?
(Because I agree!)
“Most of today’s global warming “true believers” grant-grubbing tools current-day anti-mankind Luddites eco-whackos climate change proponents”
You left “EnviroNazi” off the list.
Isn’t that a subcategory of “eco-whacko”?
I call them “watermelons”. Green on the outside, red on the inside. Ecotard-socialists, the lot of them.
Some folks just are not content to enjoy life. They must have some sort of “The sky is falling” routine going even if they must fabricate it. Seems that such folks existed throughout recorded history. Might we surmise that they existed prior to recorded history? Maybe not, since folks back then were focused on surviving each day instead of playing pretend. Or at least those who couldn’t focus on survival probably didn’t live long, or prosper.
Lars, you meathead, this article is for you. When I say that you’re a mordant dork, I mean that sincerely. http://www.msn.com/en-us/weather/topstories/the-big-melt-antarcticas-retreating-ice-may-re-shape-earth/ar-BBi1jzz IF you bother to read it, you will find that toward the end of the article, the reporter says that, at the current rate of melting, Antarctica’s ice cover will take some 200 years to 1,000 years to raise ocean levels 10 feet. You see, when I read stuff like that, I don’t do spit-takes any more. I just start laughing because frankly, none of us were around for the last ice age and its retreat, and none of us will be available 200 years to 1,000 years from now. So let’s look at how things really work, shall we? The recessional tilt is a wobble of the axis that covers a 360 degree circle. The earth’s axis moves 1 (one) degree every 72.2222-> ad infinitum years, roughly 72 years and 11 weeks. Now, how did I get that number? I used 2nd grade arithmetic. 26,000 years / 360 degrees = 72.2222-> ad infinitum If you prefer to go with 72 years exact, then 360 degrees X 72 years = 25,920 years. So basically, since 1304, the start of the LIA after the MWP, the polar axis has moved 9.875++ degrees. That doesn’t sound like much, and on your junior high school protractor, it isn’t. But in space, it becomes a wide angle. That angle affects the amount of sunlight available to each hemisphere at certain times of the year. It also affects when the seasonal changes will take place, e.g., autumn to winter, winter to spring, spring to summet, etc. And they may be shifting now, which they were doing all along. We just notice it more. That angle also affects how much ocean air is pushed northward/southward and when it will be pushed, which affects the jet stream pattern, as in winter pattern versus summer pattern. In the northern hemisphere we have had a winter jet stream pattern show up repeatedly in the summer for the past 10 years. Yes, that does mean something. Sunspots affect our… Read more »
Ex-PH2, do you realize you just expended all that energy trying to convince someone who’s so unfocused he called us “Climate Deniers” rather than anthropogenic climate change deniers?
Thanks, Poetrooper, but I only addressed Lars at the beginning because he IS a conceited ape.
The article I linked to concluded that we, as a species, are in less trouble than those people who were stuck in a snowstorm on the interstate in Kentucky for 24 hours, with no relief.
The rest of it had more to do with presenting hard facts that can be checked than anything else. So it was less about Lars the Dim than it was about me presenting a summary in an organized way, without rattling on too much, as well as citing my references. I wanted to make sure that I get to the point quickly and that what I say is clear.
Try that tabletop experiment. You’ll see what I mean.
Oh, my apology for not complimenting your well-intentioned thoroughness although I do rather suspect that Jane Goodall had better luck with chimpanzees.
Very well done, PH2. About those volcano’s? There is an article out concerning the undewater volcano’s in both major oceans, other oceans and El Ninio effect was mentioned, too. I got into a bit of a heated discussion with an alarmist, used that article and he went apeshit. lol
Thanks, Streetsweeper. Can you provide the link to that article? I do remember a report about an unusually high temperature in the Indian Ocean about 9 months ahead of the 12/26/2004 Sumatra earthquake.
There is active rifting going on in several places: Afar Rift zone near Djibouti; Antarctica (Africa plate boundary, same as Djibouti); Iceland and something seems to be happening in the Canary Islands, too. I don’t know why people aren’t making the connection between these things and warmer ocean temperatures.
Any knowledgeable climatologist without an agenda know that the climate goes in cycles. Climate change that is significantly outside the maxima and minima of those cycles isn’t happening.
Eden: the Earth’s climate also shows maxima and minima within a given climactic cycle. Given the Medieval Warm Period and the Little Ice Age, I’m not convinced we’ve seen anything in the last 100 years that even approaches the maxima or minima within the current climate cycle that began at the end of the last Ice Age.
I’m old enough to remember the “coming Ice Age” hysteria as well. Wanted to drop a link I thought y’all might enjoy, especially EX-PH2.
One Wrong Equation in the Computerised Climate Models caused the Global Warming Scare. Yep. Apparently the equation they’ve been using all this time to model CO2 feedback in the atmosphere was for feedback in an electronic circuit!!
I kid you not.
Solving the math is the easy part of modeling pretty much anything.
Figuring out what math is appropriate – and what is not – is usually the much harder part.
Thanks, Casey. I think I remember something like that a while ago.
I think it was the whole ‘climategate’ hacked e-mails scandal that just floored me at what a bunch of flagrant jackasses these climate science guys were, backstabbing each other, cursing worse than anyone here.
The worst of them was one Michael Mann, who refused then, and still refuses, to acknowledge thaat the climate cycles change for reasons as yet undetermined, because he can’t account for the climate changes that occurred before Homo neandertalis and Homo sapiens appeared on the planet. He’s worse than anyone else in that bunch. He’s the one who invented the infamous hockey stick climate chart, which is pure hogwash.
Thanks for that site, Casey! I’ve got a couple more via FB but I forgot to bookmark them ugh…
An addendum here. Using an equation that describes the behavior of an electric or electronic circuit to model a physical system is generally valid. Indeed, the early analog computers were based on precisely that principle; if I recall correctly, inductors and capacitors were used to perform integration and differentiation (would have to look up which was which; it’s been decades since I had any education in analog computing).
However, there is a catch: you can’t just grab an equation at random, use it, and expect accurate results. You first have to understand the physical system being modeled in enough detail enough to come up with the correct equation describing the system in question. Using an “off-the-shelf” solution (equation) as a starting point for the model is risky; it might or might not be applicable.
And in a model, “equation not applicable” equates to “results are garbage”.
The short summary casey links to above provides a link to a much longer and in-dept article on the subject. I haven’t yet read that longer article, so I can’t assess whether that longer article is correct (it’s both long and refers to control principles I’d have to spend some time refreshing/relearning from years ago). However, if the summary is correct, yes – that could indeed explain why climate models have been “out-to-lunch” and low by a factor of between 2 and 3 for the last 20 years regarding their predictions. Using the wrong math as the basis for your model can certainly cause that. (smile)
As I said above: when building a model, “doing the math” is the easy part. However, figuring out what math to use? That’s a very different story. You have to understand the system being modeled in detail to do that.
That’s why every time I hear someone trying to sell something with “a proprietary algorithm” I usually beat feet.
Like Josey Wales said, “How does it work on tobacco stains?”.
GDContractor: ++100!
Proprietary algorithms can be fine – provided they’re supported by calibration/test data that demonstrate to a high degree of confidence they actually work as advertised over the expected range of inputs. (Chipmakers do that all the time in hardware.) Ditto proprietary implementations of known algorithms.
The testing required for high confidence of such proprietary algorithms is a bear. And sometimes errors creep thru even then – as in the famous “Pentium bug” from about 20 years or so ago.
Absent that test/calibration data, however, the terms “pig in a poke” and “snake oil” are what come to mind.
One of the other issues which has bugged me about CAGW is that apparently none of their models has been validated.
Of course not. To validate a model, you need to execute it against known data over realistic input data spanning a large range of values (or at least the range of input values for which the model will be used) and compare the model results against known physical results. Since they’re predicting decades and/or centuries into the future, they’d need to go back that far in the past and show that their model accurately predicted that much of the past to demonstrate a probability for long-term fidelity.
In particular, they’d need to correctly predict the most recent maxima and minima during mankind’s tenure on earth. For climate models, that would mean going back and showing their model, using reasonable inputs, actually produces the last two apparent extremes during mankind’s existence – e.g., the Roman/Medieval Warm Period and the Little Ice Age.
We don’t have climate data worth a damn for but maybe the last 40 or 50 years. That means high-confidence validation of any such model ain’t gonna happen.
To add to your point… if a model can’t accurately mimic the past, how can it predict the future? No one would call a racing game a simulation that didn’t mimic real life known situations(grass causing loss of traction, bumps upsetting the suspension, etc etc), so how these some people can accept these BS AGW models that can’t mimic known events is beyond me.
The reason this BS is accepted has less to do with science and data collection than it does with ideology. It is based on emotional responses, not on absorbing facts.
Since a lot of the ‘facts’ are being proven either insufficiently supported or wrong, this creates a wild conflict and voids their ideology.
‘Rx-PH2’ is a typo on my part.
That’s exactly why those same types are for “gun control.” Our country has a declining violent crime rate, states with carry laws(CHL and open) have statistically provable less crime, but guns are the issue. Meanwhile CHL carriers are less likely to commit a crime than cops. Most importantly the 2nd Amendment has no qualifiers.
Then again I’m preaching to the choir.
If any of you run GNU/Linux (variants there-of) Debian mostly, there is a program avaliable through Debian’s software center for climate modeling. I have to look it up to get the name…think its the one that the alarmists are using, too.
I remember very well, dear Komrade Walter Cronkite’s announcement on his CBS Evening News broadcast that an
iceage was coming and another piece in-which we were going to be iced over right behind that one.
Here in Georgia, our esteemed legislative body has been giving the to the Atlanta Regional Commission (ARC) multi-jurisdictional agreements (like California’s CARB) on curbing air pollution/CO2/climate change/green zones/land use/ yada yada along the same lines as the Reginal Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI) up in the Northeast.
I guess Commissar is not going to come down here and play with us, huh Lars. But if “The One” would grace us with his presence, I have one simple question. Where, in the definition of “The Scientific Method”, does one find the word “consensus”?
Lars the Dim’s field is political economics, not science. But being a know-it-all egotist, that matters not.
If he shows up, he’s toast. Burnt toast.
A few years ago, two University of California physics grad students approached the problem of Mercury’s eccentric orbit. It’s petal-shaped, not circular. They wanted to determine the cause of the eccentricity. To be clear, if you know our solar system, you know that no planet in this system has a perfectly circular orbit. Even our lovely Moon, which lights our nights and lifts our spirits in a dull winter, does not have a perfectly circular orbit. And occasionally, Earth’s orbit changes from roughly circular to move oval-shaped. These two grad students, along with an astronomer from a Paris observatory, did a long-term simulation on the effect of Jupiter’s gravity field on Mercury’s orbit and found that there is the distinct possibility that Mercury can be pulled out of its current orbit, away from the sun. If this sounds alarming, it should not be. The process takes a long time. More important, they acknowledged that Jupiter’s gravity field influences the orbits of all of the other planets. As our largest planet, it provides stability in an eccentric universe. What they didn’t do is include the probability that Jupiter’s gravity field may be responsible for the irregular changes in Earth’s orbit from roughly circular to oval and back, which does have an effect on the climate as well. Here’s a link to the story: http://www.universetoday.com/14032/could-jupiter-wreck-the-solar-system/ I can’t find this alarming, because Jupiter and Earth have their agendas, but it does account for changes in Earth’s orbit which have been acknowledged as leading to prolonged ice cover. In our case, I think the change would not have to be more than a modest degree or two of shape from circular to just slightly ovoid to bring about this change. Note: Pluto is still a planet, a dwarf planet, one of several dwarf planets. There are also 5 moons/moonlets orbiting Pluto, including Charon, and an orbiter with a science package on board is nearing Pluto as I write this. The Dawn orbiter has sent images of two bright spots on dwarf planet Ceres (asteroid belt) and is about to go into orbit around Ceres.… Read more »
Here’s a story from Accuweather about Boston’s nearly 9 feet (105.7inches) of accumulated snow.
http://www.accuweather.com/en/features/trend/three_inventive_things_bostoni/43445949
At first glance,it’s amusing. But then you realize that the warmup is actually on its way. While the possibility of more snow falling before the east coast gets the warm up is very real, there is no indication that they are doing more than what can be done immediately to get through or around the deep snow.
Using snow farms and melting spots and dumping snow into the harbor aren’t preparing them for the flooding that will follow.
Wait until that part of spring weather – meltwater runoff – hits the entire east coast. I haven’t seen any reports on snowpack depths in the Appalachians to the north or south to the Smokies, but if they’re anything even remotely like the lowland depths, the flooding from runoff should be epic.
Theses winters are definitely seeing increased precipitation. When I commuted between Milwaukee and Chicago from 2001 to 2003, the snowplows on the interstate could not keep up with the rapid downpour of snow. Side roads did not get plowed out until the very last. Up until starting 15 years ago , the use of ‘blizzard’ in weather reports was unusual. Now it’s becoming more and more common.
Oh, yes: the glacier in my front yard is still 8 feet high.
Well said Hondo.
I must admit I hadn’t done any significant analysis of the algorithms or computer models involved.
I stopped being concerned when it became clear that those shouting the loudest had an agenda that didn’t include their own use of fossil fuels, etc.
A loose analogy might be Medea Benjamin doing her act in any of several Middle Eastern countries, or for ISIS. I just might believe her then. [shrug]
Zero, have you ever wondered just what kind of noise these greenies and AGW people would make if all the power-hungry stuff that they use suddenly became useless? No cell towers, no power stations pumping kilowatts, no central heating from gas or electric heaters, no gas or electric stoves, no oversized fridges, no air conditioning -all that stuff we and they take for granted, gone with the wind.
That would include no more water pumping stations, no sewage cleaning plants working, no clean running water, no computers, no cars running on anything.
That’s what is going on in Iraq with ISIS right now. The entire infrastructure is broken and the one and only working power station puts out electricity for about one hour a day now. The water is no longer being cleaned, which means that drinking water is contaminated with bacteria like cholera, dysentery, and typhus, and those are just for starters.
I would love to drop those people off in a place where they have nothing to fall back on.
I admire my ancestors more and more. Glad I have my great-grandma’s oil lamps.
Yep! There it is!
When the disconnect from reality is sooooo obvious I stop listening.
Like Jonn’s story about the American Flag on campus, etc.
I’m not goofy enough to think that ya can destroy the very floor under yer feet and not expect consequences. Again, etc.
Hondo, here’s question. If you know about that infamous ‘hockey stick’ chart, it does show ‘assumed’ temperatures, but the spacing from one period to the next does not match the actual length of time for warming and cooling periods, which are determined by geological evidence.
If that chart were altered, as in stretched to match the length of time for each warm-cool episode, would it be more semi-accurate?
The reason I ask is that the ‘warming’ side of each ‘peak’ shows a jagged series of warm-to-cold episodes, whereas the ‘cooling’ side shows an almost precipitous drop with little to no warm periods.
Is this a possibility?