9th May 2007, 8:07 PM
Quote:C4 accused of falsifying data in documentary on climate change
By Steve Connor, Science Editor
Published: 08 May 2007
The makers of a Channel 4 documentary which claimed that global warming
is a swindle have been accused of fabricating data by one of the
scientists who participated in the film.
The Great Global Warming Swindle was broadcast on 8 March and has been
criticised by leading scientists for errors, distortions and
misrepresentations.
The film has also been referred to the regulatory watchdog Ofcom which
is considering a complaint from 37 senior scientists that the programme
breached the broadcasting code on the misrepresentation of views and
facts.
Now even a climate sceptic whose dissenting views were used by the
film-
makers to bolster their claims about the "lies" and "swindles" of
global
warming has accused the documentary of promulgating falsehoods.
Eigil Friis-Christensen, director of the Danish National Space Centre,
has issued a statement accusing the film-makers of fabricating data
based on his work looking at the links between solar activity and
global
temperatures.
Dr Friiss-Christensen said that a graph he had produced some years ago
showing the link between fluctuations in global temperatures and
changes
in solar activity - sunspot cycles - over the past 400 years had been
doctored. The documentary used the graph to pour scorn on the idea that
the global warming in recent decades is the result of man-made
emissions
of carbon dioxide. Solar activity, the programme stated, is the cause
of
global warming in the late 20th century.
However, Dr Friiss-Christensen has issued a statement with Nathan Rive,
a climate researcher at Imperial College London and the Centre for
Climate Research in Oslo, distancing himself from the C4 graph. He said
there was a gap in the historical record on solar cycles from about
1610
to 1710 but the film-makers made up this break with fabricated data
that
made it appear as if temperatures and solar cycles had followed one
another very closely for the entire 400-year period.
"We have reason to believe that parts of the graph were made up of
fabricated data that were presented as genuine. The inclusion of the
artificial data is both misleading and pointless," Dr Friis-Christensen
said.
"Secondly, although the commentary during the presentation of the graph
is consistent with the conclusions of the paper from which the figure
originates, it incorrectly rules out a contribution by anthropogenic
[man-made] greenhouse gases to 20th century global warming," he said.
Dr Friis-Christensen, a physicist, believes that solar cycles play an
important role in climate change and that not enough effort has gone
into addressing the theory. The fabricated data did not, he said, make
any difference to the overall view he takes but he is still critical of
the way the film handled the scientific evidence. Asked by The
Independent whether the documentary was scientifically accurate, Dr
Friiss-Christensen said: "No, I think several points were not explained
in the way that I, as a scientist, would have explained them ... it is
obvious it's not accurate." Here's some more data...
The C4 programme also used out-of-date solar cycle data relating to the
past 30 or 40 years which made it appear as if temperatures and solar
activity were rising together when in fact solar activity has levelled
off for the past few decades. "After 1985 we don't see any rise or
shortening of the solar cycles compared to what we saw in the
temperature [record]," Dr Friiss-Christensen said.
Dr Friis-Christensen is the second scientist to appear on the programme
who has criticised the way the film was made. Professor Carl Wunsch of
the Massachusetts Institute of Technology said that the way his
interview was edited gave the misleading impression that he was not
concerned about rising levels of carbon dioxide - a diametrically
opposite view to his stated position.
Martin Durkin, who wrote and directed the programme, was unavailable
for
comment but admitted in an email to Mr Rive that the graph was wrong.
"Thank you for highlighting the error on the 400-year graph. It is an
annoying mistake which all of us missed and is being fixed for all
future transmissions of the film. It doesn't alter our argument," Mr
Durkin said.
However, the graph and its fabricated data will still be included in
the
DVD of the programme which went on sale yesterday. The advertising for
the DVD says: "Everything you've ever been told about global warming is
probably untrue. This film blows the whistle on the biggest swindle in
modern history."
Mr Durkin has already apologised for an error in another graph used in
the film which had to be corrected before the film's second
transmission
on the digital channel More 4.
The scientists who have written to Ofcom include Sir John Houghton, the
former chief executive of the Met Office, Lord May of Oxford, a former
government chief scientist and past-president of the Royal Society, and
Professor Chris Rapley, director of the British Antarctic Survey in
Cambridge. In a letter to Mr Durkin they call for changes to the
programme before the DVD version is released, even though DVDs are not
covered by the Ofcom Broadcasting Code.
"So serious and fundamental are the misrepresentations that the
distribution of the DVD without their removal amounts to nothing more
than an exercise in misleading the public," they say.
Quote:Ryan
Very, very interesting, and the data is pretty hard to ignore.
If you consider falsified information pretty good data.
The only thing we all agree on is that Al Gore's is a douche