Complaint to Ofcom Regarding “The Great Global Warming Swindle”

Their peer reviewed paper found evidence that cosmic rays may be capable of ionizing ultra small aerosol particles in the atmosphere. However, unlike the press release, the peer reviewed paper makes no mention at all of climate change or of global warming. Unlike the press release, Svensmark et al.’s peer reviewed paper does not claim to have found any evidence that the ionised particles they created in the laboratory (which were far smaller than the particle size required to cause cloud formation) actually can cause cloud formation. The experimental conditions described in their paper did not replicate atmospheric conditions, as they used high-energy UV in their experiment, which never penetrates to the lower troposphere, and they used much higher concentrations of SO₂ and O3 (ozone) than are usually found in the atmosphere.

Most importantly for the credibility of their press release’s proposition that cosmic rays could be responsible for the global warming of recent decades, they did not attempt to show, either in the peer reviewed paper or in their press release, that there has actually been a decreasing trend in cosmic ray levels over recent decades, which would be required in order to explain recent trends in temperature. In fact, such a trend in cosmic rays has not occurred: see http://tinyurl.com/2r8b75.

See also RealClimate’s discussion at: http://tinyurl.com/yh7x9u.

Thus by not making it clear that the claim the Channel 4 programme was making was based not on any peer reviewed scientific literature, but only on a non-peer reviewed press release, the film maker was apparently intentionally deceiving the public about the science of climate change; and has betrayed the public’s trust in the educational remit of public service broadcasting.]

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

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