Back then a few dozen people used to go outside and write thermometer readings in little books with a pencil.
Now we can see the entire world in real time and even see the temperatures of the oceans and the poles(!)
Yet we are sure the present heating is unprecedented and MWP/LIA were local.
To be fair, the people saying there was going to be an ice age in the 1970s were the same people going around saying "scientists have proved that bees can't fly".
Neither is true:
https://www.skepticalscience.com/ice-age-predictions-in-1970s.htm
http://www.snopes.com/science/bumblebees.asp
And yes, our instruments have got a lot better since then and they're confirming the 1970s pencil-and-paper predictions.
Plus: The 1970s was when greenhouse gas emissions really started taking off, so that's the most important period to study in detail.
https://xkcd.com/1732/
Well IMO this AWG crap is the same as the global cooling media event of yesteryear.
This 97% of all climate scientist agree on AWG is another fabrication of the truth. This number seems to trace back to this study, and its only if you whittle down the respondents to a small group of those polled do they come up with. Yet the media, politicans, etc all blab away as if 97% of ALL climate scientists really agree.
http://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/8/2/024024;jsessionid=3CB1DC7414FD6E3D680EC789312E3B28.c2.iopscience.cld.iop.org"Abstract
We analyze the evolution of the scientific consensus on anthropogenic global warming (AGW) in the peer-reviewed scientific literature, examining 11?944 climate abstracts from 1991–2011 matching the topics 'global climate change' or 'global warming'.
We find that 66.4% of abstracts expressed no position on AGW, 32.6% endorsed AGW, 0.7% rejected AGW and 0.3% were uncertain about the cause of global warming.
Among abstracts expressing a position on AGW, 97.1% endorsed the consensus position that humans are causing global warming. In a second phase of this study, we invited authors to rate their own papers. Compared to abstract ratings, a smaller percentage of self-rated papers expressed no position on AGW (35.5%). Among self-rated papers expressing a position on AGW, 97.2% endorsed the consensus. For both abstract ratings and authors' self-ratings, the percentage of endorsements among papers expressing a position on AGW marginally increased over time. Our analysis indicates that the number of papers rejecting the consensus on AGW is a vanishingly small proportion of the published research."
Nevermind the 66% that took no position on AWG, lets only look at the 32% that did take the leap and say humans are to blame. Somehow this means nearly ALL climate scientists agree?!?! This 97% number is being misrepresented at best. Yet anyone that comments to the contrary of AWG is a nut job conspiracist. I thought science was based on provable facts, not phony statistics.
Add in climategate, grants mainly funding studies that want to show AWG is real, bogus 97%.... IMO, there is too much money flowing only in one direction to get any objective science on this matter. Some of the same scientists pushing global cooling in the 70s are the same dbags that now push global warming. Should we limit Co2, probably. Should we all get taxed to $hit on energy, forced to use subsidized electric cars that have little to no ROI, smother solar and wind with tax money to make give them a chance of being financially viable....not in my book. Technology is getting better and will likely solve this problem give time.