By Louise Gray, Environment Correspondent

Published: 6:10PM GMT 17 Mar 2010

In definitely asserting that climate change would cause flooding and drought the adverts went beyond mainstream scientific consensus, the watchdog said. The Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) ruled that the adverts created on behalf of the Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC) and based on the children's poems Jack and Jill and Rub-A-Dub-Dub made exaggerated claims about the threat to Britain from global warming.

The ruling is a further blow to the Government's efforts to raise awareness of the threat of global warming following the "climategate" scandal and questions about the United Nations's presentation of the risks of global warming.

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Government rebuked over global warming nursery rhyme adverts Two posters juxtaposed adapted extracts from the nursery rhymes with prose warnings about the dangers of global warning.

One began: "Jack and Jill went up the hill to fetch a pail of water. There was none as extreme weather due to climate change had caused a drought." Beneath was written: "Extreme weather conditions such as flooding, heat waves and storms will become more frequent and intense."

Ed Gillespie, the co-founder of Futerra Sustainability Communications, said it was "rubbish communication" that has given climate change sceptics another opportunity to cast doubt on the science.

However he insisted it was a good learning process for the Government. In future he predicted more positive messages will be used to encourage people to take action against climate change rather than using fear as a motivation.

"It has taken us back several years where we have a higher percentage of sceptics but I suspect the bounce back will help get the communication right," he said.

Prof Mark Maslin, Director of the University College London Environment Institute, also said the Government needs to improve how it communicates the problems of climate change.

"There is a fine line between raising awareness about the potential serious threat from climate change and simply frightening people. The public deserve a better communication strategy from the government which shows them the scientific evidence for climate change and the different options we have to deal with it," he said.

"As the science does not drive policy, so people and politicians must weigh different competing issues – of which climate change is just one. So I believe using popular nursery rhymes is too simplistic a communication tool for the complex and challenging issue of climate change, with which the public needs to engage."

Climate change sceptics claim that emails stolen from the University of East Anglia show scientists were willing to manipulate the science around global warming in a scandal known as "climategate". UN body the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has been forced to retract a claim that the Himalayan glaciers could melt by 2035.

Bob Ward, policy and communications director at the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment at the London School of Economics and Political Science, feared the ASA ruling could be further used by sceptics to cast doubt on the science.

But he pointed out that it is very difficult to predict the impacts of climate change in small geographic locations like the UK.

"This does not mean that extreme events in the UK will not increase in frequency and severity, only that our ability to estimate future changes is limited at present. So-called 'sceptics', who promote complacency and denial about the causes and consequences of climate change, will no doubt use this ASA ruling as a propaganda tool in an attempt to mislead the public. But the public should be sceptical of anybody who uses this ruling to claim that there will be no change to extreme weather events in the UK if greenhouse gas levels in the atmosphere carry on rising," he said.