Sixty two years ago, on this day, January 30 1961, in a story that would later be used by incoherent denialists, Walter Sullivan, New York Times science reporter, reported that the world was… cooling.,
You see this clip on various denialist websites. You don’t see this below, from the same article.
This was in the context of a symposium in New York, attended by Hermann Flohn and Gilbert Plass, among others…
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 317ppm. As of 2023 it is 419. .
The context was that global temperatures had been rising over the last 50 plus years (Guy Callendar had been one of many to spot this – his contribution had been to say it was down to carbon dioxide build-up). However, from about 1940, the amount of dust/smog/sulphur had increased the reflectiveness of the atmosphere, meaning some of the sun’s heat didn’t hit the Earth. So temperatures started falling…
What I think we can learn from this
The signal did not properly emerge from the noise until the 1970s (though the reason – smog/suplhur was well understood)
Denialists cherry-pick like mad, then project that onto people who… advocate for 19th century physics.
What happened next
The carbon dioxide kept accumulating. Sullivan kept covering it, forming good relationships with working scientists like Stephen Schneider (they met late 1972) and James Hansen.
What do you think? Does this pass the ‘so what?’ threshold? Have I got facts wrong? Interpretation wrong? Do comment on this post.