Tulsa World: Climate e-mails debated

MAKE US YOUR HOMEPAGE | Tuesday, February 09, 2010 | WIRELESS

Home > News > Article

Newspaper View Print this story

Comment

RSS

Bookmark

Climate e-mails debated
Inhofe calls for a probe in the dispute over messages.

By BRIAN WINTER USA Today
Published: 11/25/2009 2:30 AM
Last Modified: 11/25/2009 6:08 AM

WASHINGTON — A controversy over leaked e-mails exchanged among global warming scientists is part of a "smear campaign" to derail next month's United Nations climate summit in Copenhagen, one of the scientists, meteorologist Michael Mann, said Tuesday.

Unknown hackers illegally broke into a server last week at the climate institute at Britain's University of East Anglia. The hackers then published hundreds of candid private messages in which top climate change specialists debate how to address recent data showing temperatures leveling off, the university says.

Sen. Jim Inhofe, R-Okla., called for a congressional investigation into whether the messages demonstrate a deliberate effort by some of the scientists to overstate the effects of man-made global warming.

Inhofe, a global warming skeptic, sent letters Tuesday to the inspectors general of several agencies and to scientists asking them to retain records related to the e-mails.

House Republicans want to know how much the scientists contributed to a widely cited U.N. report on climate change. The report has served as the basis for action in Congress and by the Obama administration to reduce greenhouse gases.

Climate change skeptics "don't have the science on their side anymore, so they've resorted to a smear campaign to distract the public from the reality of the problem and the need to confront it head-on in Copenhagen," said Mann, professor of meteorology at Pennsylvania State University who was the recipient of several of the published e-mails.

Officials from the United States and 191 other nations will meet Dec. 7-18 in Copenhagen to try to reach a deal to cut greenhouse gas emissions and slow the pace of global warming.

In one leaked e-mail, the climate institute's director, Phil Jones, wrote to colleagues about a "trick" he said that Mann employed to "hide the decline" in recent global temperatures.

Some recent studies, including one by Britain's Hadley Center for Climate Prediction and Research, indicate that global temperatures have been nearly flat during the past decade, which could undermine arguments that the Earth is undergoing a long-term warming trend because of the burning of fossil fuels. Jones has denied manipulating evidence and said his comments were taken out of context.

The publication of the e-mails bolsters global warming skeptics and could reduce the odds of the Senate passing a climate bill early next year, said Patrick Michaels, a senior fellow for environmental studies at the Cato Institute, a libertarian think tank.

Richard Somerville of the Scripps Institution of Oceanography at the University of California-San Diego said the controversy does not fundamentally alter the scientific evidence behind global warming fears.

Somerville, Mann and 24 other scientists released a report Tuesday with what they said was new evidence of climate change and its effects. Among their findings:

Arctic sea ice is melting "far beyond the expectations" of a 2007 U.N. report.

The world's seas are rising an average 0.13 inch a year — 80 percent above the previously estimated rate — as glaciers and ice caps melt.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

By BRIAN WINTER USA Today

Newspaper View Print this story

Comment

RSS

Bookmark

Reader Comments

Show: Most Recent Comment First

Add your comment

7 comments have been made on this story so far. Tell us what you think below!

Reporting Comments

If you see a comment that violates our terms and conditions, please help us by clicking the "Report this Comment" link next to a comment. That will alert the web staff to review the comment. Thank you. -- Web Editor Jason Collington

	Report Comment oldrustytulsa, Tulsa (11/25/2009 7:52:33 AM) The earth goes through cycles, just as seasons Change, So does the Whole planet, the bible says to rotate crops every seven years, and let the land lay fallow. So whats new with the Global Warming?Hog-wash.
	Report Comment doonuts, (11/25/2009 9:17:32 AM) Why is this story not on the front page of TW? This is going to prove to be the biggest scientific scandal we have ever known and no one is reporting it or it is stuck at the back somewhere. Get this on the front page and get the truth out there.
	Report Comment 612, Broken Arrow (11/25/2009 9:40:12 AM) Agreed, doonuts. I had to search for this article, while the Lambert article is highlighted on the front page of the website. This is huge, not only in terms of the truth about global warming, but in terms of the trust we place in "top scientists" and the politicians who push policies based on their conclusions.
	Report Comment longhorn sam, westex (11/25/2009 11:21:51 AM) Scientists exchanging emails among themselves on how to screw people out of money and being caught and now the emails being used against them is not a smear campaign! It's the truth!
	Report Comment marine2.0, (11/25/2009 6:42:16 PM) Climate change skeptics "don't have the science on their side anymore, so they've resorted to a smear campaign to distract the public from the reality of the problem and the need to confront it head-on in Copenhagen," said Mann, So right. How could we have the science when the scientists who challenge global warming are disregarded or ousted and the purveyors of global warming lie and manipulate the evidence. This is the biggest story of the decade. The amount of money that this lie has cost and will cost is beyond staggering. The freedoms that this lie has circumvented are beyond repair. Bernie Madoff has nothing on these crooks.
	Report Comment Middleway(MB), Undisclosed Location (11/25/2009 8:10:59 PM) so do you guys think one small group of scientists in england speaks for the entire group of scientists in the world classic case of guilty by association w u ppl. as i said this is one small group, and this story is not huge, in fact all the details arent even out yet, but u guys have already made up your minds this story will b buried in a month and your opinions on the matter are worthless
	Report Comment 612, Broken Arrow (11/30/2009 1:04:23 AM) "What we are looking at here is the small group of scientists who have for years been more influential in driving the worldwide alarm over global warming than any others, not least through the role they play at the heart of the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)." -- Christopher Booker, 11/28/2009 yeah, "...one small group of scientists in England..." So - either this group is insignificant and their views should be ignored because they are insignificant and they have been covering up evidence, or this group is significant, and they have been defrauding the world because they have been covering up evidence. Are defenders trying to say that we should believe that what these scientists say is true, but since these scientists are insignificant, it's ok that they have been covering up evidence? Is that science? Really? We should believe this?

Add Your Comment
In order to post a comment on this article, you must sign in to Tulsaworld.com. If you do not have a site account, you can create an account for free.