dlndavid:This article was published in Newsweek. What a difference from the scenario of today.
http://ksfo.com/goout.asp?u=http://www.globalclimate.org/Newsweek.htm
That article gets trounced around the internet almost like spam. It's been so overhyped and referenced, one would think it's peer-reviewed and current. It is neither. Like most news articles, worst-case scenarios are presented. Worst-case scenarios virtually never occur.
Do not read much into public information articles, without scrutinizing the details. The details ARE peer-reviewed, and still mostly valid. There was and is an equatorial temperature increase, and North America has had some fluky climate the last half century. North America is not a good model for global climate change; it does not nearly as well reflect the trends seen on other continents. Climatologists do not use regional-scale values as proxies for global patterns anymore; they simply monitor the entire Earth from orbit.
I have tracked down a fairly simple-to-read article geared for farmers in Nebraska, which as far as I can tell leaves out the hype and drama regarding global warming phenomena. It's actually rather nice, with cute tables and graphs.
http://ianrpubs.unl.edu/generalag/g1311.htm
You will also note any reference to causal factors in the old Newsweek article. It merely discusses temperature patterns predominantly from North America, and gives hypothetical predictions for global patterns. This time period also predates all but the most basic computer models, integration of oceanographic data, and the bulk of laboratory experimentation. Global data was much harder to quantify (mainly due to lack of satellites) as well. It is universally known that increases (or decreases) in global air temperatures will still result in regional-scale reversals, due to weather pattern changes. El Nino was only just being understood in the 1970's... most decadal-scale weather oscillations at the present time are believed to now be accounted for.
Science, unlike a great many other disciplines, only improves with time. The data compounds. Modeled predictions get better. This is dramatically emphasized by monthly editions of Popular Mechanics (or Popular Science). They have one page dedicated exclusively to referencing science-related news articles from the past, in 25, 50, and 100-year intervals. Very rarely are the older reports more valid than the newer ones. Typically that's because the older science had less data to work with.
The take home lesson is not to use older science as a level against newer science in the same discipline(s). This isn't the liberal arts. :dazzler1: