Complaint to Ofcom Regarding “The Great Global Warming Swindle”

It is therefore difficult to see how Channel 4 can justify its billing of Ian Clarke as a leading scientist, and a leading expert on climatology, palaeoclimatology and Antarctic ice core data

Funding and Links to Corporate-funded Lobby Groups

(For information about the following organisations and the funding they receive, see Appendix D: Corporate-funded Organisations Linked to Contributors to the Programme).

Professor Richard Lindzen

Lindzen is Professor of Meteorology at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He is a well-regarded meteorologist with a distinguished publication record (see http://tinyurl.com/28wszg); however, his research is mostly in meteorology (the weather) rather than on climatology.

His last original research in climatology was published in 2001 (ISI WoS) and hypothesized an adaptive “Iris Effect” of clouds in the tropics that reduces the temperature change due to increasing greenhouse gas concentrations. However, this hypothesis has since been strongly disputed by other climate scientists (see http://tinyurl.com/23gwno).

Lindzen co-authored a 2001 report of the National Academy of Sciences http://tinyurl.com/yuswbu, which concluded that:

Greenhouse gases are accumulating in Earth’s atmosphere as a result of human activities, causing surface air temperatures and subsurface ocean temperatures to rise. Temperatures are, in fact, rising. The changes observed over the last several decades are likely mostly due to human activities, but we cannot rule out that some significant part of these changes is also a reflection of natural variability.”

He has since claimed that the summary did not accurately reflect the main report, and has made similar criticisms of the IPCC Summary for Policy Makers from its 2001 Third Assessment Report (see http://tinyurl.com/2ay5vj)  – although he has yet to demonstrate the basis of these claims.

Despite reportedly saying that he is “willing to take bets that global average temperatures in 20 years will in fact be lower than they are now”, he has refused to accept a bet with climatologist James Annan on this, unless the payout was 50:1 or better in his favour (see http://tinyurl.com/39e5ne).

Lindzen has also been accused by distinguished scientists of having said things in public testimony, in order to win an argument, that he knew were not supported by the scientific evidence – see: http://tinyurl.com/yo5and, http://tinyurl.com/ytb2g9, http://tinyurl.com/2a35a6 and http://tinyurl.com/yrbcju.

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