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Complaint to Ofcom Regarding “The Great Global Warming Swindle”

2. Complete Transcript and Rebuttal

[Professor Carl Wunsch, Dept of Oceanography, Massachusetts Institute of Technology]

The ocean is the major reservoir into which carbon dioxide goes when it comes out of the atmosphere, or from which it is readmitted to the atmosphere. If you heat the surface of the ocean, it tends to emit carbon dioxide. So similarly, if you cool the ocean surface, the ocean can dissolve more carbon dioxide.

[Comment 54: Wunsch has since clarified these remarks, saying that “… I was trying to explain that warming the ocean was dangerous because it could potentially release so much CO₂. That was used to make the point that most of the CO₂ in the ocean is ‘natural’ and so not a human caused problem.” (http://tinyurl.com/2abj44). The context provided by the narration therefore misrepresents Wunsch’s point in a deeply misleading way.

See also Wunsch’s response at: http://tinyurl.com/2fcfnh, in which he writes: “my intent was to explain that warming the ocean could be dangerous, because it is such a gigantic reservoir of carbon. By its placement in the film, it appears that I am saying that since carbon dioxide exists in the ocean in such large quantities, human influence must not be very important – diametrically opposite to the point I was making – which is that global warming is both real and threatening.” ]

(In breach of the 2003 Communications Act Section 265, Ofcom 5.7, 7.2, 7.3, 7.6, 7.9)

[Narrator]

So the warmer the oceans, the more carbon dioxide they produce, and the cooler they are, the more they suck in. But why is there a time lag of hundreds of years between a change in temperature and a change in the amount of carbon dioxide going into or out of the sea? The reason is that oceans are so big and so deep they take literally hundreds of years to warm up and cool down. This time lag means that oceans have what scientists call “memory” of temperature changes.

[Prof Carl Wunsch]

The ocean has a memory of past events running out as far as 10,000 years. So for example if somebody says: “oh, I’m seeing changes in the north Atlantic, this must mean that the climate system is changing,” it may only mean that something happened in a remote part of the ocean decades or hundreds of years ago, whose effects are now beginning to show up in the north Atlantic.

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Comment 54: Use of selective editing to misrepresent Wunsch on ocean reservoirs]


Page 49 of 176	Final Revision	Last updated: 11 Jun 2007