A new batch of more than 5,000 emails purportedly from the University of East Anglia’s (UK) Climatic Research Unit has been released on the internet. A previous release of emails was dubbed “ClimateGate” in 2009; this led to a number of inquiries which dismissed accusations of fraud. Once again the emails have been released shortly before the annual UN climate summit.
These comments have been gathered by our colleagues at the UK Science Media Centre.
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Prof Andrew Watson FRS, Royal Society Research Professor at the University of East Anglia, said:
“Reading down these selective quotes, what comes across to me is that climate scientists are a diverse, complex and argumentative bunch, much like any other group of people. They argue about the data and trash the models. They bitch about their colleagues. Some see global warming as a “cause” and all are passionate about the importance of their work, but they worry and complain that the science is becoming distorted by the politics. Some feel that their religious belief requires them to promote the stewardship of the Earth; others feel that their critics are driven by religious zealotry.
So what to make of all that? That they are diverse, sometimes contradictory, and have multiple motives. Well, so what? Welcome to the human race!
But by being sceptical, argumentative and critical of themselves and each other, they are applying the scientific method and slowly iterating towards an understanding of the climate. Which is what you’d hope they would do.
Meantime, none of this, not one word that I can see, subtracts from the simple fact that the world has warmed significantly in the last 100 years and it’s most likely caused by humans increasing the concentration of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere.”
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Dr Simon Lewis, Royal Society research fellow at the University of Leeds, said:
“This latest email leak, again on the eve of important international climate talks, is about politics. Yet the shadowy, undemocratic group trying to influence these international talks will fail. I sat through two weeks of talks in Copenhagen after the first email release and heard them mentioned only once. This new leak will have a similarly limited impact. Governments know that climate science reports signed off by over 190 countries, each with their own scientists, cannot be unduly influenced by a single scientist or a small group. These emails are irrelevant.
The group who released the emails say they released them because the world’s poor may suffer if carbon emissions are reduced. But in reality the world’s poorest people have been calling most loudly for serious action on climate change. Next week in Durban it will be rich, polluting countries refusing to sign new legally binding agreements, and poor countries – along with South African social movements outside, – who will be vocally protesting the lack of action. The new email leak is a play by rich people to keep on polluting regardless of the consequences, and should not be seen as anything else.”
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Prof Piers Forster, School of Earth and Environment at the University of Leeds, said:
“Science thrives off open debate. Releasing personal emails will only serve to make scientists more guarded in how we communicate and lead to worse, not better, science. Phil Jones is my respected colleague: he and the others should be afforded the same privacy in their correspondence as the rest of us expect. But when it comes to their science, the openly-published, highly scrutinised data and analyses speak for themselves. I hope the public will judge the peer-reviewed, published work – and not the authors themselves.”
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Bob Ward, policy and communications director at the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment at London School of Economics and Political Science, said:
“It is perhaps not surprising that those responsible for the release of hacked e-mails before the Copenhagen summit in 2009 should make another intervention before the United Nations climate change meeting in Durban next week. The selective presentation of old e-mail messages is clearly designed to mislead the public and politicians about the strength of the evidence for man-made climate change, in the hope that governments will stop their efforts to reach an agreement on international action to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
But the fact remains that there is very strong evidence that most the indisputable warming of the Earth over the past half century is due to the burning of fossil fuels and other human activities. The e-mails that have been highlighted by self-proclaimed climate change ‘sceptics’ do not raise any questions of substance that have not already been addressed by the independent inquiries into the original publication of hacked messages in November 2009. None of the inquiries found evidence of fraud or serious misconduct by climate researchers, but they did conclude that levels of transparency should be improved.
These e-mails, like the last batch, show that climate researchers are human and prone to the same rivalries and disputes that occur in many professions. Nonetheless, the University of East Anglia should carry out a formal review of all the new material to check whether it raises any new issues of substance. No doubt the police will also be investigating whether this new set of e-mails sheds any new light on the identity of the hacker.”
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