As for the ice age prediction issue the facts are listed below. If the CIA was looking for different information than they were most probably biased and emphasized, by selective picking of individuals.
Bottom line, temperatures were anywhere from rock steady to slightly cooler from the 1950s to the late 1970s which gave some very careless scientists who where incapable of taking Carbon Dioxide into account, the false impression that they would continue cooling. It took some courage for scientists in the 1960s and 1970s to predict Global Warming in spite of a temporary hiatus in temperature increase.
We now lnow that this was due to aerosols reflecting sunlight and compensating for the increasing Carbon Dioxide. Aerosol levels have dropped somewhat due to, ironically, cleaner combustion methods and smog control devices.
I present the entire argument from http://www.skepticalscience.com/ice-age-predictions-in-1970s.htm
Villabolo
Did scientists predict an impending ice age in the 1970s?
The skeptic argument...
Ice age predicted in the 70s
"The media had been spreading warnings of a cooling period since the 1950s, but those alarms grew louder in the 1970s. In 1975, cooling went from 'one of the most important problems' to a first-place tie for 'death and misery'. The claims of global catastrophe were remarkably similar to what the media deliver now about global warming." (Fire and Ice).
What the science says...
| Select a level... | Basic | ||||
| The vast majority of climate papers in the 1970s predicted warming. | |||||
In the thirty years leading up to the 1970s, available temperature recordings suggested that there was a cooling trend. As a result some scientists suggested that the current inter-glacial period could rapidly draw to a close, which might result in the Earth plunging into a new ice age over the next few centuries. This idea could have been reinforced by the knowledge that the smog that climatologists call ‘aerosols’ – emitted by human activities into the atmosphere – also caused cooling. In fact, as temperature recording has improved in coverage, it’s become apparent that the cooling trend was most pronounced in northern land areas and that global temperature trends were in fact relatively steady during the period prior to 1970.
At the same time as some scientists were suggesting we might be facing another ice age, a greater number published contradicting studies. Their papers showed that the growing amount of greenhouse gasses that humans were putting into the atmosphere would cause much greater warming – warming that would a much greater influence on global temperature than any possible natural or human-caused cooling effects.
By 1980 the predictions about ice ages had ceased, due to the overwhelming evidence contained in an increasing number of reports that warned of global warming. Unfortunately, the small number of predictions of an ice age appeared to be much more interesting than those of global warming, so it was those sensational 'Ice Age' stories in the press that so many people tend to remember.
The fact is that around 1970 there were 6 times as many scientists predicting a warming rather than a cooling planet. Today, with 30+years more data to analyse, we've reached a clear scientific consensus: 97% of working climate scientists agree with the view that human beings are causing global warming.
Rebuttal written by John Russell. Last updated on 19 August 2010.
Further reading
- Was an imminent Ice Age predicted in the '70's? by William Connelly documents all the scientific literature in the 70's on global cooling.
- Past Cycles: Ice Age Speculations by Spencer Weart(part of the History of Global Warmingseries)documents the development of ice agescience.
- Logical Science goes to the trouble of purchasing the 1975 National Academy of Sciences report to see what the NAS had to say about globalcooling in the 70's.
- James Hansen responds to the claims that "Hansen predicted an ice age in the 70's", explaining the role of his computer program used in Rasool's paper.
- Check out thisNew York Times article from 1956 that discusses a forecasted increase in global temperatures as emissions from burning fossil fuels increase atmospheric CO2. Thanks to George Morrison for the heads up.
- Robert Brulle at the Wonk Room looks at a range of New York Times articles on climate science in the late 60's and early 70's.
- The 1979 report from the National Academy of Sciences, "Carbon Dioxide and Climate: A Scientific Assessment" finds "when it is assumed that the CO2 content of the atmosphere is doubled and statistical thermal equilibrium is achieved, the more realistic of the modeling efforts predict a global surface warming of between 2°C and 3.5°C, with greater increases at high latitudes."