Looks great: what does it mean?

“Climategate” has put scientists on trial in the court of public opinion. If you believe climate sceptics, a huge body of evidence involving the work of tens of thousands of scientists over more than a century should be thrown out on the basis of the alleged misconduct of a handful of researchers, even though nothing in the hacked emails has been shown to undermine any of the scientific conclusions.

If we are going to judge the truth of claims on the behaviour of those making them, it seems only fair to look at the behaviour of a few of those questioning the scientific consensus. There are many similar examples we did not include. We leave readers to draw their own conclusions about who to trust.

1. Fun with the sun

In 1991, the journal Science published a paper by researchers Eigil Friis-Christensen and Knud Lassen, then at the Danish Meteorological Institute in Copenhagen. It included graphs that appeared to show a remarkably close correlation between solar activity and terrestrial temperatures – suggesting that other factors, such as carbon dioxide levels, have little influence on global temperatures.


The graphs were seized on by climate change sceptics and have been widely reproduced ever since. But according to Peter Laut of the Technical University of Denmark in Lyngby, the close correlations in the original graphs, and in updated versions published in 1995 and 2000, exist only because of what he describes as a “pattern of strange errors”.

Laut described his findings in a peer-reviewed paper (Journal of Atmospheric and Solar-Terrestrial Physics, vol 65, p 801) and also wrote them up in a less technical form for the geophysicists’ newspaper Eos (vol 85, p 370 (PDF)). His concerns about the 1991 paper are shared by a number of leading climate scientists.

Outcome: Little action has been taken following publication of Laut’s papers. The 1991 paper is still frequently cited by climate deniers.

2. The great swindle

A television programme called The Great Global Warming Swindle was commissioned by the British broadcaster Channel 4 and aired in 2007.

The documentary, written and directed by Martin Durkin, prompted a voluminous complaint to the UK’s broadcast regulator Ofcom, alleging 137 breaches of broadcasting regulations.

For instance, the programme showed a graph comparing temperature and solar activity since 1550, based on a 1995 paper by Friis-Christensen and Lassen. This was one of the graphs questioned by Peter Laut (see above).

In the original graph, there was a gap in the solar activity line between 1600 and 1700 because there were no sunspots at this time, as confirmed by sunspot records. In the TV programme, this gap had somehow been filled in. Friis-Christensen accused the programme makers of fabricating the data.

The programme was also alleged to have misrepresented the views of several scientists who were interviewed on camera.

Outcome: Ofcom upheld some complaints about scientists being misrepresented, but decided that the breaches of factual accuracy did not fall within its remit.

3. The Oregon petition

The Oregon Institute of Science and Medicine is a research centre in the small town of Cave Junction; it says it conducts research into “protein biochemistry, diagnostic medicine, nutrition, preventive medicine and ageing”. In 1998, it issued a petition urging the US government to reject all limits on greenhouse gas emissions. The petition was mailed to thousands of US scientists, who were asked to sign it.

It was accompanied by an article entitled “Environmental effects of increased atmospheric carbon dioxide“. One of the authors, Willie Soon, is a well-known climate sceptic. The article closely resembled the style of articles from the peer-reviewed journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, down to the typeface. It had not been published in that or any other journal, as the US National Academy of Sciences made clear in a statement.

Despite intense scientific criticism (see here (PDF) and here, for example) the petition attracted over 30,000 signatures – although the organisers admitted that they did little to verify the respondents’ credentials, allowing obviously fake names like “Dr Geri Halliwell” to be included.

Outcome: As of 2008, the petition was being recirculated. The accompanying article has acquired an aura of respectability, having finally been published in a journal, albeit not one specialising in climatology: – the Journal of American Physicians and Surgeons.

4. Peer review?

In 2008, the Forum on Physics and Society (FPS), a newsletter produced by the American Physics Society, published an article entitled “Climate sensitivity reconsidered“. The article claimed that “the IPCC’s estimates may be excessive and unsafe” and that attempts to cut CO 2 emissions “are pointless, may be ill-conceived and could even be harmful”.

The article was written by Christopher Monckton, a British journalist and consultant. Although apparently highly technical, the piece has been strongly criticised by professional climate scientists, including Gavin Schmidt, of NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies, New York.

The piece was reported by the US Science and Public Policy Institute as having been “peer-reviewed”.

The editors of FPS pointed out that, as was standard practice at the journal, they had merely edited the piece without sending it out to specialist climate scientists for peer review. A disclaimer was subsequently added to the piece, clarifying that nothing in FPS was peer-reviewed.

Outcome: In late 2009, Monckton embarked on a tour of North America to promote his personal views on climate change.

5. No logo

The Global Warming Policy Foundation is an independent think tank chaired by the former British finance minister Nigel Lawson that claims to “bring reason, integrity and balance to a debate that has become seriously unbalanced, irrationally alarmist and all too often depressingly intolerant“. So it is a little disappointing that a graph in the banner on the organisation’s homepage is so misleading.

That graph is a jazzed-up graph of average global temperatures since 2001 and shows, essentially, no trend. The implication is that global temperatures are not increasing.

Of course, no conclusions can be drawn from such a short time span, because temperatures vary so much from year to year anyway. You have to look at several decades in order to pick out real trends. The UK Met Office this week published data showing that the first decade of the 2000s has been the warmest on record.

Outcome: On 3 December the British newspaper The Independent reported that “an error by a graphic designer” in the graph had been corrected. The larger issue of the misleadingly short time span has not been addressed.

6. David Bellamy

Readers in the UK may remember botany lecturer David Bellamy as a leading conservationist and a presenter of television programmes about the environment and biodiversity. To give some idea of his commitment to environmental issues, in 1983 he was jailed for blockading Australia’s Franklin River in protest at a proposed dam.

However, Bellamy has become a prominent global warming sceptic and has made a number of notable claims in the media.

For instance, in 2005 he wrote a letter to New Scientist claiming that most of the world’s glaciers are growing, which is manifestly not the case. In fact, around the world glaciers are melting three times as fast as they were in the 1980s.

Then last year he claimed that, as a result of increased carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, “300,000 square kilometres of former desert are now covered with trees“. He cited New Scientist as the source for this claim, so we combed our archive to find the evidence.

Outcome: We couldn’t find any article making such a claim. On the contrary, we found an alternative explanation for the greening. Bellamy has never contacted us to acknowledge the error with the glaciers or to point us to the source of the claim for the greening of the desert.

7. Astroturfing

It’s not just a kind of artificial grass: the word astroturfing also refers to a form of propaganda.

Organisations promoting a particular viewpoint set about creating an artificial “grassroots” movement, which appears to be spontaneous but is in fact carefully planned by the organisation.

Earlier this year, the US House of Representatives select committee on energy independence and global warming received a number of letters opposing the American Clean Energy and Security Act, which would set limits on the country’s greenhouse gas emissions. The letters were purportedly from members of the public.

However, it then emerged that the letters were an example of astroturfing: several of them had been faked.

Outcome: At a hearing of the House select committee, the president of US lobbying firm Bonner and Associates apologised. The fake letters were apparently created by a temporary employee.

8. Cosmic correlations

According to Henrik Svensmark, a physicist at the Danish National Space Center in Copenhagen, cosmic rays have a major affect on the Earth’s climate. He says that fewer cosmic rays mean fewer clouds, warming the Earth.

In 1997, Svensmark claimed there was a correlation between cosmic ray intensity and satellite measurements of total cloud cover since the 1980s. This apparent correlation depends on adjustments to the data, however, and it does not hold up (PDF) when more recent cloud measurements from 1996 onwards are included.

Svensmark has also pointed to an apparent correlation between low-altitude cloud cover and cosmic rays. But after 1995, the fit of Svensmark’s graph depends on a “correction” of satellite data, and the satellite scientists say this is not justified. “It’s dubious manipulation of data in order to suit his hypothesis,” says Joanna Haigh, an atmospheric physicist at Imperial College London. Svensmark does not accept this.

Recent independent studies suggest cosmic rays can affect cloudiness, but not in the way Svensmark claims, and that their effect on climate is insignificant. Direct satellite measurements rule them out as an explanation for the recent warming.

Outcome: Svensmark wrote a book about his ideas, The Chilling Stars, co-authored by Nigel Calder, editor of New Scientist from 1962 to 1966. Despite the lack of scientific support, his claims remain popular with climate deniers. Svensmark claims the world is cooling. Well, let’s see.

Read more: New Scientist’s full coverage on the latest Copenhagen and climate change news