copenlu/druid huggingface dataset:
Claim: Scientists predicted global cooling and were wrong, so they are wrong about global warming (Facebook users, 2023-12-19)
Evidence (2023-02-15): Even though scientists know more about the most recent 6,000 years than any other multimillennial interval, studies on this long-term global temperature trend have come to contrasting conclusions. [...] Meanwhile, climate models generally show a slight warming trend, corresponding to a gradual increase in carbon dioxide as agriculture-based societies developed during the millennia after ice sheets retreated in the Northern Hemisphere. [...] Understanding and better incorporating these and other feedbacks will be important as scientists continue to improve our ability to predict future changes.
Claim: Scientists predicted global cooling and were wrong, so they are wrong about global warming (Facebook users, 2023-12-19)
Evidence (2024-01-12): "This paper is the first ever systematic assessment of a fossil fuel company’s climate projections, the first time we’ve been able to put a number on what they knew," said Geoffrey Supran, lead author and former research fellow in the History of Science at Harvard. "What we found is that between 1977 and 2003, excellent scientists within Exxon modeled and predicted global warming with, frankly, shocking skill and accuracy only for the company to then spend the next couple of decades denying that very climate science." [...] Harvard’s scientists used established Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) statistical techniques to test the performance of Exxon’s models. They found that, depending on the metric used, 63-83 percent of the global warming projections reported by Exxon scientists were consistent with actual temperatures over time. Moreover, the corporation’s own projections had an average "skill score" of 72 percent, plus or minus 6 percent, with the highest scoring 99 percent. A skill score relates to how well a forecast compares to what happens in real life. For comparison, NASA scientist James Hansen’s global warming predictions presented to the U.S. Congress in 1988 had scores from 38 to 66 percent. The researchers report that Exxon scientists correctly dismissed the possibility of a coming ice age, accurately predicted that human-caused global warming would first be detectable in the year 2000, plus or minus five years, and reasonably estimated how much CO2 would lead to dangerous warming.
Claim: Scientists predicted global cooling and were wrong, so they are wrong about global warming (Facebook users, 2023-12-19)
Evidence (2024-02-20): Ever since, Gwynne's "global cooling" story – and a similar Time Magazine piece – have been brandished gleefully by those who say it shows global warming is not happening, or at least that scientists – and often journalists – don't know what they are talking about. [...] Rush Limbaugh: "I call [global warming] a hoax… A 1975 Newsweek cover was gonna talk about the ice age coming. So they're really confused how to play it." Sean Hannity on Fox News: "If you go back to Time Magazine, they actually were proclaiming the next ice age is coming, now it's become global warming… How do you believe the same people that were predicting just a couple decades ago that the new ice age is coming?"
Claim: Scientists predicted global cooling and were wrong, so they are wrong about global warming (Facebook users, 2023-12-19)
Evidence (2021-08-06): Modern climate science is old enough for many of its early predictions to be checked against evidence—the overall global warming trend; specific patterns like nighttime warming exceeding daytime warming; or the cooling of the stratosphere. Even with all that new evidence, the estimated amount of warming you get for a given amount of greenhouse gas emissions hasn’t really changed since 1979. The flip side to this is also true. Those who have opposed climate science’s conclusions—they’re a broad menagerie, including scientists in different fields, politics-obsessed bloggers, and think-tank employees—have also been squawking long enough for predictions to be tested. Despite their alternate-reality insistence that climate science never predicted anything, these contrarians don't spend much time showing off their own predictions’ track record. [...] Before we turn on the scoreboard, it’s worth reviewing some commonalities of these predictions. Most of them appeal to cycles—particularly solar cycles. This lets them place any alarming upward trend in the comforting blanket of a downward trend that is just around the corner.
Claim: Scientists predicted global cooling and were wrong, so they are wrong about global warming (Facebook users, 2023-12-19)
Evidence (2020-07-06): Yet even at that early stage, a scientific consensus was emerging on warming, not cooling, in the near future. This was made clear by a 2008 study called "The Myth of the 1970s Global Cooling Scientific Consensus," which conducted a survey of the peer-reviewed literature from 1965 to 1979. The research team found that of the 71 related research papers, 44 indicated warming while only 7 indicated cooling (20 did not make projections either way). "Global cooling was never more than a minor aspect of the scientific climate change literature of the era, let alone the scientific consensus," the authors write. [...] In short, while a handful of scientists did predict cooling a half a century ago, that is a drop in the bucket compared to the tens of thousands of peer-reviewed scientific papers since then which substantiate that humans are heating the climate. [...] Climate scientists are often accused of making alarming assertions about climate change, like "the impacts will be catastrophic by 2030" or "we only have a decade left to save the planet." First and foremost, scientists are not predicting this. However, some politicians and media headlines have used select bits of scientific data to fuel the impression of impending Armageddon.
Claim: Scientists predicted global cooling and were wrong, so they are wrong about global warming (Facebook users, 2023-12-19)
Evidence (2023-06-12): The reasons to disbelieve that humans are causing global warming are many and varied, skeptics say. For example: Natural factors such as long-term variations in solar radiation are causing the rise in worldwide average temperature. The urban heat island effect is skewing modern weather data, so the warming observed in recent decades isn’t real. And besides, not long ago experts all believed the Earth was cooling, not warming. Actually, research has shown that many such ideas are bogus. While changes in solar output have slightly increased global average temperature since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution, the planet-warming effect of man-made greenhouse gases is about 20 times larger ("Heated dispute" letter, SN: 10/27/07, p. 271). And although cities are warmer than neighboring rural areas, that phenomenon doesn’t mask recent warming trends in long-established cities ("Don’t blame the cities," SN Online: 9/5/08). Now, new research also skewers the global warming skeptics’ claim that, in the 1970s, scientists believed that an ice age was imminent. Researchers of the day had discovered that Earth had been cooling since the 1940s. Some believed that continued increases in the amount of planet-cooling aerosols kicked up or emitted by human activity — dust and smog, for example — could easily tip the planet into an ever-deepening cycle of cooling, skeptics have repeatedly pointed out. That wave of concern was obviously a false alarm, the skeptics note, so maybe today’s scientists are equally mistaken about global warming.
Claim: Scientists predicted global cooling and were wrong, so they are wrong about global warming (Facebook users, 2023-12-19)
Evidence (2008-09-01): Climate science as we know it today did not exist in the 1960s and 1970s. The integrated enterprise embodied in the Nobel Prizewinning work of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change existed then as separate threads of research pursued by isolated groups of scientists. Atmospheric chemists and modelers grappled with the measurement of changes in carbon dioxide and atmospheric gases, and the changes in climate that might result. Meanwhile, geologists and paleoclimate researchers tried to understand when Earth slipped into and out of ice ages, and why. An enduring popular myth suggests that in the 1970s the climate science community was predicting "global cooling" and an "imminent" ice age, an observation frequently used by those who would undermine what climate scientists say today about the prospect of global warming. A review of the literature suggests that, on the contrary, greenhouse warming even then dominated scientists' thinking as being one of the most important forces shaping Earth's climate on human time scales. More importantly than showing the falsehood of the myth, this review describes how scientists of the time built the foundation on which the cohesive enterprise of modern climate science now rests. NOAA/National Climatic Data Center, Asheville, North Carolina British Antarctic Survey, National Environment Research Council, Cambridge, United Kingdom
Claim: Scientists predicted global cooling and were wrong, so they are wrong about global warming (Facebook users, 2023-12-19)
Evidence (2019-07-22): Other scientists, starting in the 19th century, had already demonstrated that carbon dioxide was what we now call a "greenhouse gas". By the 1950s, scientists were predicting warming of several degrees from the burning of fossil fuels. In 1972 John Sawyer, the head of research at the UK Meteorological Office, wrote a four-page paper published in Nature summarising what was known at the time, and predicting warming of about 0.6°C by the end of the 20th century. [...] In this case, their very specific prediction was that warming of between 1.5°C and 4.5°C would accompany a doubling of atmospheric CO₂. At the time, global temperatures, in the absence of their hypothesis and science, might have been expected to stay pretty much the same over the ensuing 40 years, cooled a bit, possibly even cooled a lot, or warmed a lot (or a little). In the absence of global warming science any of these outcomes could have been feasible, so their very specific prediction made for a very stringent test of their science.
Claim: Scientists predicted global cooling and were wrong, so they are wrong about global warming (Facebook users, 2023-12-19)
Evidence (2019-11-21): Earth’s cooling climate, Science News, November 15, 1969 — The average temperature for the entire Earth rose gradually from the 1880s until the early 1940s. At that time, a cooling trend suddenly set in which is continuing today.… The amount of dust and other particulate matter in the atmosphere has increased dramatically in recent decades, a change that could counteract the thermal effect of carbon dioxide buildup. From 1940 to about 1975, the average global surface temperature decreased by about 0.1 degrees Celsius, interrupting a decades-long warming trend even as carbon emissions continued to rise. Many scientists thought the cooling trend was possibly caused by sulfate particles from the burning of fossil fuels that can scatter sunlight and reduce atmospheric warming (SN: 11/21/09, p. 5). That hunch proved correct: When the United States and other countries began to lower sulfur emissions in the 1970s to reduce acid rain and respiratory illnesses, the cooling ended abruptly. Since 1975, the average global temperature has risen by about 0.6 degrees C.
Claim: Scientists predicted global cooling and were wrong, so they are wrong about global warming (Facebook users, 2023-12-19)
Evidence (2015-06-05): Cruz, March 24: I read this morning a Newsweek article from the 1970s talking about global cooling. And it said the science is clear, it is overwhelming, we are in a major cooling period and it’s going to cause enormous problems worldwide. … Now, the data proved to be not backing up that theory. So then all the advocates of global cooling suddenly shifted to global warming. [...] Bulletin of the AMS, September 2008: An enduring popular myth suggests that in the 1970s the climate science community was predicting "global cooling" and an "imminent" ice age, an observation frequently used by those who would undermine what climate scientists say today about the prospect of global warming. A review of the literature suggests that, on the contrary, greenhouse warming even then dominated scientists’ thinking as being one of the most important forces shaping Earth’s climate on human time scales. The survey of the peer-reviewed literature between 1965 and 1979 found only seven papers "indicating" global cooling compared with 44 papers indicating warming (see chart).
Claim: Scientists predicted global cooling and were wrong, so they are wrong about global warming (Facebook users, 2023-12-19)
Evidence (2024-07-24): I thought I would take a few minutes to educate myself on what scientists were saying, were they wrong, and why. Here's what I found: [...] Tracing back the 'scientists predicted cooling' comments on a sceptic website led me back to two authors, and an internet search found two papers: [...] It's worth saying that these errors were identified and corrected fairly rapidly within the scientific community - the 'Global 2000' report to the Carter administration gave the prevailing scientific concensus in 79/80 as for 'moderate warming'.
Claim: Scientists predicted global cooling and were wrong, so they are wrong about global warming (Facebook users, 2023-12-19)
Evidence (2015-12-14): Long before geophysicist Michael Mann’s hockeystick graph became the icon for anthropogenic global warming, the US President’s Science Advisory Committee [now known as the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology (PCAST)] cautioned President Lyndon B. Johnson that the continued release of CO2 to the atmosphere from burning fossil fuels would "almost certainly cause significant changes" and "could be deleterious from the point of view of human beings." The committee’s report concluded that there could be "marked changes in climate, not controllable through local or even national efforts." In recognition of the 50th anniversary of that first official warning from scientists to policy-makers, the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), the Carnegie Institution for Science, the American Meteorological Society, and the Linden Trust for Conservation sponsored a 1-day climate symposium on 29 October. [...] It’s also true, though, that climate scoffers often charge that scientists’ climate consensus has been mostly made up, ad hoc, and comparatively recent and that it hasn’t really evolved methodically from sensibly conducted research. That’s why Inside Science News at the American Institute of Physics published and circulated Peter Gwynne’s 2014 article "My 1975 ‘Cooling World’ story doesn’t make today’s climate scientists wrong." It carried the subheadline "It’s time for deniers of human-caused global warming to stop using an old magazine story as ammunition against the consensus of today’s climate scientists."
Claim: Scientists predicted global cooling and were wrong, so they are wrong about global warming (Facebook users, 2023-12-19)
Evidence (2017-04-13): How prevalent then were worries about global warming? An examination of peer-reviewed scientific literature conducted by a group of researchers in 2008, covering the mid-1960s through the 1970s, revealed that papers warning of global warming outnumbered those projecting cooling by a factor of six. So climate change in the form of global warming was a widespread topic of concern during this era, and there was no consensus that the Earth would cool in the immediate future. In later years, though, climate change deniers latched upon the 1970s speculations of a cooling planet as a way to discredit scientists who raise the alarm over increasing global temperatures. Some contrarians point to an international conspiracy they say is trying to suppress evidence of a supposed consensus on global cooling. Not only is global warming wrong, these deniers argue, but the exact opposite of warming may be happening — and in any case, how can we believe scientists who claim one thing in one decade and something completely different in another? Or who predicted one disaster that never happened, and now forecast another?
Claim: Scientists predicted global cooling and were wrong, so they are wrong about global warming (Facebook users, 2023-12-19)
Evidence (2011-01-14): It is ok to be wrong. Science cannot prove an idea is true but only that it is false. Correcting mistakes is how science moves forward. But Easterbrook is not just wrong, he is playing fast and loose with the data. He was caught red-handed using a doctored graph in a 2007 conference (see http://bit.ly/goEkd3) and in subsequent articles and talks. Easterbrook not only edited these graphics to change the information they contained, but did so in order to minimize the evidence of recent global warming. This is, at the very least, academic malpractice. More recently (12/28/10) he incorrectly labeled a graph of temperatures for the previous 10,000 years to claim that most of these years were warmer than present. His "current temperature" was really 1855 and not the much warmer present day. He was notified of his mistake but refuses to issue a retraction (see http://bit.ly/dW6BOk). A good scientist corrects and learns from mistakes, but this seems foreign to Easterbrook.
Claim: Scientists predicted global cooling and were wrong, so they are wrong about global warming (Facebook users, 2023-12-19)
Evidence (2008-11-05): "I was aware that they were not seeing this huge cooling that we were seeing in the ocean," says Willis. "In fact, every body was telling me I was wrong. And there were always doubts," says Willis. "After all, it was a very surprising result. As a scientist, its part of my job to turn over every leaf. So I was constantly going back over the data and looking for problems." [...] "So the new Argo data were too cold, and the older XBT data were too warm, and together, they made it seem like the ocean had cooled," says Willis. The February evening he discovered the mistake, he says, is "burned into my memory." He was supposed to fly to Colorado that weekend to give a talk on "ocean cooling" to prominent climate researchers. Instead, he’d be talking about how it was all a mistake. A scientist could hardly be expected to be happy about finding a mistake in his work after he published it. But if you have to watch your research go down in flames, it may help to regard it as an offering on the sacrificial fire of scientific progress. In the case of "ocean cooling," Willis has plenty of reasons to consider the sacrifice worth it.
Claim: Scientists predicted global cooling and were wrong, so they are wrong about global warming (Facebook users, 2023-12-19)
Evidence (2017-04-04): Despite the many climate "skeptics" in key positions of power today, 97 percent of working climate scientists agree that the warming of Earth’s climate over the last 100 years is mainly due to human activity that has increased the amount of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. Why are they so sure? [...] Here is how scientists know that the climate change we are experiencing is mainly due to human activity and not a result of natural phenomenon. [...] "There are a number of ways that can happen, but each of them has a different fingerprint. If the sun were brighter, we would see warming all the way up through the atmosphere from the surface to the stratosphere to the mesosphere. We don’t see this. We see instead warming at the surface, cooling in the stratosphere, cooling in the mesosphere. And that’s a signature of greenhouse gas forcing, it’s not a signature of solar forcing. So we know it’s not solar."
Claim: Scientists predicted global cooling and were wrong, so they are wrong about global warming (Facebook users, 2023-12-19)
Evidence (2023-06-06): Take, for example, ocean warming. Despite criticisms from climate change skeptics, global climate models have accurately predicted rising average sea surface temperatures, which are extremely important to predicting the intensity of climate change. But observations in recent decades show that changes in sea surface temperatures vary greatly by region. That geographic variation suggests that end of century global warming may be less severe than most climate models suggest. These observations do not invalidate climate modeling, but they do highlight the importance of regular comparisons between climate models and the real-world observations they aspire to reflect. [...] The way that the models are both right and wrong simplifies to a math problem. A numerically infinite number of combinations bring you to the same average value. For example, two is the mean of two and two, but also the mean of one and three. In this way, global climate models are correctly arriving at the mean sea surface temperature warming, but missing the real-life regional variation. But how the ocean warms has enormous implications for global climate sensitivity, or how much the Earth as a whole will warm. [...] While that may be a troubling problem for climate scientists, it means that based on observed Eastern Pacific cooling, the models are very likely overshooting end of century global warming estimates, Battisti and Dong said. Even with an active greenhouse effect, these stronger Eastern Pacific clouds still reflect a non-negligible amount of solar radiation back to space, bringing down overall warming.
Claim: Scientists predicted global cooling and were wrong, so they are wrong about global warming (Facebook users, 2023-12-19)
Evidence (2022-05-25): 18 Spectacularly Wrong Predictions Were Made Around the Time of the First Earth Day in 1970, Expect More This Year [...] 9. In January 1970, Life reported, "Scientists have solid experimental and theoretical evidence to support…the following predictions: In a decade, urban dwellers will have to wear gas masks to survive air pollution…by 1985 air pollution will have reduced the amount of sunlight reaching earth by one half…." [...] MP: Let’s keep those spectacularly wrong predictions from the first Earth Day 1970 in mind when we’re bombarded again this year with dire predictions of "gloom and doom" and "existential threats" due to climate change. And let’s think about the question posed by Ronald Bailey in 2000: What will Earth look like when Earth Day 60 rolls around in 2030? Bailey predicts a much cleaner, and much richer future world, with less hunger and malnutrition, less poverty, longer life expectancy, and lower mineral and metal prices. But he makes one final prediction about Earth Day 2030: "There will be a disproportionately influential group of doomsters predicting that the future – and the present – never looked so bleak." In other words, the hype, hysteria, and spectacularly wrong apocalyptic predictions will continue, promoted by virtue-signaling "environmental grievance hustlers" like AOC, who said several years ago that we have "only 12 years left to stop the worst impacts of climate change."