Complaint to Ofcom Regarding The Great Global Warming Swindle

2. Complete Transcript and Rebuttal

Page 59

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[Prof Ian Clark]

Ive never seen such vastly different records coming together so beautifully to show really what was happening over that long period of time.

[Narrator]

The climate was controlled by the clouds; the clouds were controlled by cosmic rays; and the cosmic rays were controlled by the sun. It all came down to the sun.

[Comment 64: The narrator continues to present highly contentious interviewees' opinions as fact. The theoretical climate-varying mechanism between cosmic rays and clouds has not been demonstrated empirically, and thus to present it as fact was a serious misrepresentation of the state of scientific knowledge by the narrator. Furthermore, the documentary fails to mention that Shavivs work (Shaviv and Veizer, 2003: http://tinyurl.com/3dwgy3) has been strongly disputed in the literature by three papers, none of which were mentioned by the narrator:

1.

Jahnke (2005) in an article in Astronomy and Astrophysics (http://tinyurl.com/388odc) finds fault with the data collection and analysis methods used by Shaviv and Veizer in determining a periodicity of cosmic ray activity using meteorite samples. He finds the data to be consistent with a uniform distribution, which means that there is no evidence for this periodicity.

2.

Royer et al (2004) compare the historical impact of CO2 and cosmic ray flux on climate changes over the past 500 million years (http://tinyurl.com/2n87o4). They find fault with the method for reconstructing historical temperature used by Shaviv and Veizer. Correcting the methodology for errors introduced by the acidity (pH) of the ocean, the temperature is found to be better correlated with CO2 concentrations. They suggest that cosmic rays may have an influence, but they are not the main driver over multi-million year time-scales.

3.

Rahmstorf et al. (2004) state that Shaviv and Veizers use of meteorites as a means of measuring historical cosmic ray flux is highly questionable, and that the evidence presented by Shaviv and Veizer is little more than a similarity in the average periods of the Cosmic Ray Flux variations and a heavily smoothed temperature reconstruction. Phase agreement is poor. The authors applied several adjustments to the data to artificially enhance the correlation.

Secondly, and independently, they state that Shaviv and Veizers conclusion with regard to a revised estimate of climate sensitivity (temperature impact of doubling of CO2 concentration) is weak, as they used an incomplete analysis that included climate eras that were much different to our current climate, so could not provide insight into the impact of CO2 increases due to industrialisation (see the abstract at http://tinyurl.com/386x4f, and the full paper at http://tinyurl.com/2dfbf).

The programmes failure to mention the serious concerns expressed about the Shaviv and Veizer paper in the scientific literature was a serious betrayal of the publics trust in the public service remit of Channel 4.]

(In breach of the 2003 Communications Act Section 265, Ofcom 5.4, 5.5, 5.7, 5.11, 5.12)


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Comment 64: Failure to mention scientific findings that Shavivs paper seriously flawed]

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Page 59 of 176

Final Revision

Last updated: 11 Jun 2007