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
