Complaint to Ofcom Regarding “The Great Global Warming Swindle”

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.

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.

Rahmstorf et al. (2004) state that Shaviv and Veizer’s 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 Veizer’s 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).