As they review the bizarre and unpredictable weather pattern of the past several years, a growing number of scientists are beginning to suspect that many seemingly contradictory meteorological fluctuations are actually part of a global climatic upheaval. However widely the weather varies from place to place and time to time, when meteorologists take an average of temperatures around the globe they find that the atmosphere has been growing gradually warmer for the past three decades. The trend shows no indication of reversing. Climatological Cassandras are becoming increasingly apprehensive, for the weather aberrations they are studying may be the harbinger of more drastic changes to come.
Telltale signs are everywhere —from the unexpected thinning of pack ice in the waters around Iceland to the southward migration of a warmth-loving creature like the armadillo from the Midwest.  Since the 1940s the mean global temperature has risen about 2.7° F. Although that figure is at best an estimate, it is supported by other convincing data. When Climatologist George J. Kukla of
Columbia University’s Lamont-Doherty Geological Observatory and his wife Helena analyzed satellite weather data for the Northern Hemisphere, they found that the area of the ice and snow cover had suddenly decreased by 12% in 1971 and [...] has persisted ever since. Areas of Baffin Island in the Canadian Arctic, for example, were once totally covered year round are now free of any snow in summer.

Scientists have found other indications of global warming. For one thing there has been a noticeable decrease of the great belt of dry, high-altitude polar winds —the so-called circumpolar vortex—that sweep from west to east around the top and bottom of the world. Indeed it is the thinning of this cap of cold air that is the immediate cause of Africa’s rainfall.  Increased moisture-bearing equatorial winds and [...] bring rainfall to the sub-Sahara region, as well as other [...] areas stretching all the way from Central America to the Middle East and India, the shrinking polar winds have in effect caused the Sahara and other deserts to reach farther to the south. Paradoxically, the same vortex has created quite different weather quirks in the U.S. and other temperate zones. As the winds swirl around the globe, their southerly portions undulate like the bottom of a skirt. Cold air is
pulled down across the Western U.S. and warm air is swept up to the Northeast. The collision of air masses of widely differing temperatures and humidity can create violent storms—the Midwest’s recent rash of disastrous tornadoes, for example.
Sunspot Cycle. The changing weather is apparently connected with differences in the amount of energy that the earth’s surface receives from the sun. Changes in the earth’s tilt and distance from the sun could, for instance, significantly increase or decrease the amount of solar radiation falling on either hemisphere—thereby altering the earth’s climate. Some observers have tried to connect the eleven-year
sunspot cycle with climate patterns, but have so far been unable to provide a satisfactory explanation of how the cycle might be involved.

Man, too, may be somewhat responsible for the warming trend. The University of Wisconsin’s Reid A. Bryson and other climatologists suggest that dust and other particles released into the atmosphere as a result of farming and fuel burning may be depleting the ozone layer and heating the surface of the earth.

Climatic Balance. Some scientists like Donald Oilman, chief of the National Weather Service’s longrange-prediction group, think that the warming trend may be only temporary. But all agree that vastly more information is needed about the major influences on the earth’s climate. Indeed, it is to gain such knowledge that 38 ships and 13 aircraft, carrying scientists from almost 70 nations, are now assembling in the Atlantic and elsewhere for a massive 100-day study of the effects of the tropical seas and atmosphere on worldwide weather. The study itself is only part of an international scientific effort known acronymically as GARP (for Global Atmospheric Research Program).
Whatever the cause of the warming trend, its effects could be extremely serious, if not catastrophic.  Scientists figure that only a 1% increase in the amount of sunlight hitting the earth’s surface could tip the climatic balance, and warm the planet enough to send it sliding down an unrecoverable road within only a few hundred years.
The earth’s current climate is something of an anomaly; in the past 700,000 years, there have been at least seven major episodes of glaciers spreading over much of the planet. Temperatures have been as high as they are now only about 5% of the time. But there is a peril more immediate than the prospect of
continued warming. Even if temperature and rainfall patterns change only slightly in the near future in one or more of the three major grain-exporting countries—the U.S., Canada and Australia —global food stores would be sharply reduced. University of Toronto Climatologist Kenneth Hare, a former president
of the Royal Meteorological Society, believes that the continuing drought and the recent failure of the Russian harvest gave the world a grim premonition of what might happen. Warns Hare: “I don’t believe that the world’s present population is sustainable if there are more than three years like 1972 in a row.”

Stunning, I know.  1972 and all of this was known.   Over thirty years later what have we learned?  If interested in reading the original is can be found here.

By the way the title is “Another Ice Age? — Jun. 24, 1974.”  We edited the cooling trends and rewrote them to match today’ s fervor over warming.   Yes, it is true in the 1970s scientist were blaming mankind for the cooling of the planet and began to demand action.   That trends reversed and so did their argument, if not their desire to blame man and demand action.

Well, that darn Mother Nature is messing with the “all-knowing experts.”  Even the New York Times is beginning to admit that argument is losing steam, “at a time when global temperatures have been relatively stable for a decade and may even drop in the next few years.”    Of course, they forward the argument that this recent trend of cooling does not mean the climate is not warming.   Well documented rasons for the cooling, El Nina, Volcanos, sun activity, etc.  Funny that the lack of Vlacanic activity, increase Sun activity and El Neno cannot be the reason for the warming.

Sorry, it seems to me that it is simply about power, control and regulation.   No matter which way the needle floats it is mankind’s fault and governments desire to act.  Not a single mention of Nuclear Power…odd.