In 1974, CO2 level was 350ppm, the safe level, why were scientists worried about an ice age occurring?

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Technically we ARE in an ice age RIGHT NOW, but it is an interglacial period. During the Dalton minimum roughlyb200/years ago, that was almost a micro ice age not quite a deep as the Little Ice age during the Maunder minimum. Greenland really was green when the Norse colonized it.

In 1974 we were going into a solar minimum activity period. Many scientists thought that might trigger another very small ice age.
Right Noe we probably ate going into another long period of minimum solar activity, That's kind of ironic and contradictory and seemingly illogical.
They hadn't fully integrated l and correlated the Milankovitch cycles caused by the changes in the eccentricity of Earth's orbit with ice core temperature data. Partly it was lack of computing power and data crunching that we can now do at a much faster rate.

After reading the other answers, the CFCs in the atmosphere from .aerosols was one of the reasons. You could often see a layer if air pollution along the western...Show more

This is typically revised history from a science illiterate.
The issue was dust in the atmosphere - noted but downplayed by scientists yet played up by a sensationalist press and ignorant readers....Show more

It's easy to find if you know how to use Google. Massive amounts of aerosols were blocking out sunlight and sulfur dioxide causes cooling too....Show more

scientists were NOT worried about an ice age in the 70's. This was all overhype of some cooling by the media....Show more

This a good question and after reading your reference I have to laugh. Plants stop growing at 150ppm and are struggling at 250ppm. Back in 1974 they had long cold winters, crop shortages and famines. This is just before things started to warm up in the 80s, so it had to be a cool solar cycle for their concerns.

I have always focused on increasing levels, not the other way. I am going to look into this further....Show more