global warming news - Study debunks 'global cooling' concern of '70s (USA Today)

The supposed "global cooling" consensus among scientists in the 1970s — frequently offered by global-warming skeptics as proof that climatologists can't make up their minds — is a myth, according to a survey of the scientific literature of the era. Newsweek , Time , The New York Times and National Geographic published articles at the time speculating on the causes of the unusual cold and about the possibility of a new ice age. But Thomas Peterson of the National Climatic Data Center surveyed dozens of peer-reviewed scientific articles from 1965 to 1979 and found that only seven supported global cooling, while 44 predicted warming. Peterson notes in the study that concerns over the frigid 1970s subsequently became representative of scientific division over global warming. Just as it's hard for people today to think much about global warming in the dead of winter, it was also hard for the public – and the media – to focus on a warming world, while at the same time enduring some of the coldest winters on record. read more

Tags: time, warming, , global, scientific, global warming news, peterson