Scientist hits back at global warming 'swindle' documentary

We are far more likely to be destroyed in the next 300 or 400 years by a new disease sweeping across the world

The relationship between CO2 levels and temperature was not the only issue over which the Channel 4 documentary The Great Global Warming Swindle came under fire.

One scientist went so far as to accuse it of lying. The programme ascribed rising global temperatures to fluctuations in solar energy reaching the earth, or solar irradiance. This fluctuates over an 11-year cycle, with larger variations over the centuries, and is one of many variables that must be fed into climate models. Even looked at in isolation, the figures are not reassuring.

Global temperature since 1980 has risen sharply while solar radiation has remained relatively flat. The programme cited the fallibility of computer models as grounds for scepticism. Yet, as with all weather forecasts, the fact that they can be wrong doesn’t mean they cannot say some things for sure. And the argument cuts both ways: the models could be underestimating the problem.

The possibility exists that we could trigger a thermal runaway that destroys all life on earth. But happily that is not considered at all likely. Professor Martin Visbeck, of Keil University, told PCW: “We are far more likely to be destroyed in the next 300 or 400 years by a new disease sweeping across the world.”