Data from the Southern Hemisphere, particularly south of latitude 30 south, are so meager that reliable conclusions are not possible, the report says. The 30th parallel of south latitude passes through South Africa, Chile and southern Australia. The cooling trend seems to extend at least part way into the Southern Hemisphere but there have been indications of warming at higher latitudes.

An international team of specialists in 1975 had concluded from eight indexes of climate that there is no end in sight to the cooling trend of the previous 30 years, at least in the Northern Hemisphere. In some, but not all cases, the data extend through last winter. They include sea surface temperatures in the north central Pacific and north Atlantic, air temperatures at the surface and at various elevations as well as the extent of snow and ice cover at different seasons.

The report, prepared by German, Japanese and American specialists, appears in the Dec. 15, issue of Nature, the British journal. The findings indicate that from 1950 to 1975 the cooling, per decade, of most climate indexes in the Northern Hemisphere was from 0.1 to 0.2 degrees Celsius, roughly 0.2 to 0.4 Fahrenheit. In almost all cases it has been found that the year to year variations in climate are far more marked than the long term trend. The long term trend often becomes evident only when data from a number of years are displayed. The various indexes were reported as follows: Average surface air temperatures recorded at 358 stations north of latitude 20 degrees south from 1951 to 1975 have been analyzed by Drs. R. Yamamoto and T. Iwashima of Kyoto University in Japan on regional and season bases. A general cooling is evident with “an intensive cooling episode” from 1961 to 1964. We really don’t know which of the two are right see below.

NOAA now says plus 0.2 C per decade. Was minus -0.2 C per decade in period 1950-1975