In message , Timothy Murphy
writes
Stewart Robert Hinsley wrote:

Yes, well; funny thing about scientists... back in the 70"s they were
predicting a mini ice-age.

Actually, that is a myth. The (then weak) consensus in the scientific
press, rather than the popular media, was for warming.

http://www.realclimate.org/index.php...lobal-cooling-
myth/

It depends what time-scale you are talking about.
I think the Milankovitch cycle theory,
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milankovitch_cycles#100.2C000-year_problem,
is generally accepted,
and according to that we are near the end of an inter-glacial period
(in a 100,000 year cycle).

The Milankovitch cycles are the summation of several independent cycles,
and while the length of a typical interglacial is 10,000 years, the
length of individual interglacials varies according to how the phases of
the cycles interact. The current interglacial is predicted, even sans
anthopogenic effects, to be an extended one. I'm told that this was
known to scientists by the 1970's, even though it hadn't filtered
through to the popular media.

But that is talking about thousands of years;
global warming is talking about the next 100 years.


--
Stewart Robert Hinsley