global cooling

once again i heard somebody mention predictions of global cooling made 40 years ago. usually the claim is that scientists predicted a new ice age, or something like that. this time it was attributed to the UN, which i don't think i've heard before. the implication given in such claims is always that they were wrong then so they must be wrong now about global warming and climate change. it's about time i looked it up.

here's how wikipedia's article starts out:

Global cooling was a conjecture during the 1970s of imminent cooling of the Earth's surface and atmosphere along with a posited commencement of glaciation. This hypothesis had mixed support in the scientific community, but gained temporary popular attention due to a combination of press reports that did not accurately reflect the scientific understanding of ice age cycles, and a slight downward trend of temperatures from the 1940s to the early 1970s. In contrast to the global cooling conjecture, the current scientific opinion on climate change is that the Earth has not durably cooled, but undergone global warming throughout the twentieth century.

as you can see from the rest of the article, the deniers are wrong on this one, too.