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It was suggested (see sci.environment thread "yet another negative feedback", April 2002) that "this one ought to be submitted to that web page that requests any citations for journal articles from that era predicting global cooling..." but sadly it isn't that interesting. Its just the usual: orbital forcing "predicts" cooling over the next 23 kyr, but short-term and anthropogenic affects will occur.

"Modelling the climate response to orbital variations". John Imbrie and John Z. Imbrie, Science, 1980, v207, p943.

From the summary:

"...ignoring anthropogenic and other possible sources of variation acting at frequencies higher than one cycle per 19,000 years, this model predicts that the long-term cooling trend which began some 6000 years ago will continue for the next 23,000 years."

This makes clear that these are long-term "predictions" (they even use the word). They are not using the word "prediction" in the sense that it would normally be understood in everyday language, or in the IPCC sense. Part of the (short) "predictions" section, for example, deals with "predicting" the past. Also they are aware that they are not predicting the real world, but one free of influences other than those they are considering.

How important do they consider "anthropogenic and other possible sources of variation acting at frequencies higher than one cycle per 19,000 years"? This is hard to tell. The only anthro effect they mention is (p951) "possible warming due to an increase in carbon dioxide levels" (not even a nod to possible aerosol cooling).

What do they mean by "long-term"? Well, they mention that the "prediction" is also ignoring "sources of variation acting at frequencies higher than one cycle per 19,000 years", so it is clear that century (or two) scale predictions (ie, on "global warming" type timescales) are not considered.

KP kindly provided a link to the absract.


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