CATH NEWS REPORT: The head of the Bureau of Meteorology has rebuked Cardinal George Pell for his scepticism about climate change, insisting the cardinal has been misled, reports the Sydney Morning Herald.
Sydney's Cardinal Pell is an outspoken disbeliever in man-made global warming, arguing that it was hotter during the Middle Ages and carbon dioxide levels are not historically high.
Bureau director Greg Ayers used an appearance at a Senate estimates hearing yesterday to criticise the cardinal's personal views.
He said the core of his arguments were based on a book by Australian scientist Ian Plimer called Heaven and Earth: Global Warming the Missing Science.
"The cardinal has been misled.""The contents of the book are simply not scientific," Dr Ayers told the committee.
The book has been routinely dismissed by fellow scientists, who criticised it as a "polemic from one individual", including phrases not at all based in science.
Over 10 minutes, Dr Ayers outlined a litany of errors repeated by Cardinal Pell, rubbishing one particular reference to greenhouse gases and nitrogen.
"It's not a greenhouse gas; it's 78 per cent of the atmosphere," Dr Ayers said.
He'll be writing to Cardinal Pell in due course, asking him to come on a tour around the country visiting scientists working in the climate change field.
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