Science not faked,
but not pretty
E-mails stolen from climate scientists
show they stonewalled skeptics and discussed hiding data
— but the messages don't support claims that the
science of global warming was faked, according to an exhaustive
review by The Associated Press.
12/12/2009 - The 1,073 e-mails examined by the AP show
that scientists harbored private doubts, however slight
and fleeting, even as they told the world they were certain
about climate change. However, the exchanges don't undercut
the vast body of evidence showing the world is warming
because of man-made greenhouse gas emissions.
The scientists were keenly aware
of how their work would be viewed and used, and, just
like politicians, went to great pains to shape their message.
Sometimes, they sounded more like schoolyard taunts than
scientific tenets.
The scientists were so convinced
by their own science and so driven by a cause "that
unless you're with them, you're against them," said
Mark Frankel, director of scientific freedom, responsibility
and law at the American Association for the Advancement
of Science. He also reviewed the communications.
Frankel saw "no evidence of
falsification or fabrication of data, although concerns
could be raised about some instances of very 'generous
interpretations.'"
Some e-mails expressed doubts about
the quality of individual temperature records or why models
and data didn't quite match. Part of this is the normal
give-and-take of research, but skeptics challenged how
reliable certain data was.
The e-mails were stolen from the
computer network server of the climate research unit at
the University of East Anglia in southeast England, an
influential source of climate science, and were posted
online last month.
Do UNFCCC
