Weart 5

by the early 1970s scientists could say "We are entering an era when man's effects on his climate will become dominant." (p. 87)

• but they weren't yet sure whether warming or cooling effects would dominate
• the public and even many scientists still assumed the system would return to balance
• scientists were not confident enough to make policy recommendations except that more money should be spent on research

Syukuo Manabe started early building numerical models of climate to run on the best computers of the time, but there wasn't enough data. That changed:

•  the World Weather Watch program organized more global collection of data
• satellites were developed to collect some kinds of data from all over the world
• turning that data into the kind weather models used was problematic--a sensor in a satellite cannot easily tell you the temperature at several different levels of the atmosphere or the atmospheric pressure
• by 1967 models could predict the effect of doubling CO2 convincingly
• in the 1970s the models got a lot better and the warming they predicted increased

Clouds were still a big uncertainty but the role of CO2 increasing seemed central

still a huge need for more research: in 1978 Congress created a Climate Office in NOAA
but funding grew slowly (US funding in graph on right)

As scientists tried to bring work in different fields together there were big disagreements

Environmental activists were increasingly paying attention
By 1971 the public had noticed, but not yet clearly separated CO2/global warming from pollution by noxious chemicals