Feb. 11 (Bloomberg) -- The University of East Anglia said it will appoint external assessors to reappraise some of its key scientific work in the wake of the “Climategate” flap surrounding e-mails hacked from the U.K. school’s server.
Skeptics of climate change had pointed to the e-mails, which appeared in blogs in November, as evidence that the university’s academics had manipulated evidence of global warming and conspired to suppress studies questioning the link between climate change and human activity. The university denied those charges.
The university’s work fed into some of the key findings of the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, whose biggest report on global warming in 2007 blamed rising temperatures on human activity and is used by governments worldwide to guide climate and energy policy.
“The findings of our researchers have been the subject of significant debate in recent months,” Professor Trevor Davies, the university’s pro-vice-chancellor for research, said today in a statement on the UEA Web site. “We believe it is in the interests of all concerned that there should be an additional assessment considering the science.”
The university said it asked the Royal Society, the U.K.’s national science academy, to name possible assessors with the required expertise. They’ll examine the “key” publications at the earliest date they can manage, the school said.
“It is important that people have the utmost confidence in the science of climate change,” Royal Society President Martin Rees said in an e-mailed statement. “Where legitimate doubts are raised about any piece of science they must be fully investigated - that is how science works.”
Academics Questioned
Phil Jones, director of the school’s Climatic Research Unit and author of many of the e-mails, stepped aside from his post in December, pending completion of an investigation. In one e- mail, he spoke of deleting files rather than handing over data to skeptics requesting them.
Another researcher who featured in the e-mails, Michael Mann, was cleared by Pennsylvania State University on Feb. 3 of manipulating data and destroying records, though he remains under investigation on a charge that he “deviated from accepted practices within the academic community,” which he denies.
Skeptics of climate change had pointed to the e-mails, which appeared in blogs in November, as evidence that the university’s academics had manipulated evidence of global warming and conspired to suppress studies questioning the link between climate change and human activity. The university denied those charges.
The university’s work fed into some of the key findings of the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, whose biggest report on global warming in 2007 blamed rising temperatures on human activity and is used by governments worldwide to guide climate and energy policy.
“The findings of our researchers have been the subject of significant debate in recent months,” Professor Trevor Davies, the university’s pro-vice-chancellor for research, said today in a statement on the UEA Web site. “We believe it is in the interests of all concerned that there should be an additional assessment considering the science.”
The university said it asked the Royal Society, the U.K.’s national science academy, to name possible assessors with the required expertise. They’ll examine the “key” publications at the earliest date they can manage, the school said.
“It is important that people have the utmost confidence in the science of climate change,” Royal Society President Martin Rees said in an e-mailed statement. “Where legitimate doubts are raised about any piece of science they must be fully investigated - that is how science works.”
Academics Questioned
Phil Jones, director of the school’s Climatic Research Unit and author of many of the e-mails, stepped aside from his post in December, pending completion of an investigation. In one e- mail, he spoke of deleting files rather than handing over data to skeptics requesting them.
Another researcher who featured in the e-mails, Michael Mann, was cleared by Pennsylvania State University on Feb. 3 of manipulating data and destroying records, though he remains under investigation on a charge that he “deviated from accepted practices within the academic community,” which he denies.
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