A Look Back: The Coming Ice Age

The Coming Ice Age - Harper's Magazine - Sept. 1958

A friend brought this to my attention today. It is almost 60 years old. (Note the name of the authoress of the article.)

Very interesting. I had not seen it previously. I don’t think it is inconsistent with other things I have read.

Note, though, that the previous warming and subsequent ice age occurred without a human-induced increase in atmospheric CO2; and, that there was no discernable human contribution to the emergence from the ice age. It is only in the past ~65 years that human CO2 emissions are thought to have had any influence; and, that the extent of human influence is neither discernable nor quantifiable.

It is research like this which causes me to question the assertions that man is the sole, or even the principal, cause of the recent warming. The very rapid increase in temperature in 2015, followed by the very rapid decrease in 2016, suggests that the principal cause of those events was not a slow increase in atmospheric CO2 concentrations.