Climategate Inquiry Clears Scientists Of Dishonesty

An inquiry into the Climategate scandal has cleared the scientists of any accusations that they altered climate data.

This inquiry into University Of East Anglia’s Climatic Research Unit (CRU) was led by civil servant Sir Muir Russell, and was set up by the University of East Anglia to look at the allegations arising from an email leak in November last year.

Climate scientists were accused of fudging results to bolster the case for man-made global warming, and to silence critics. The claims were made after more than 1,000 emails were taken from a back-up server at the university, and published online, showing researchers speaking in scathing terms about their critics, as well as discussing ways to stonewall them.

Despite this, the “Climategate” storm failed to expose any significant problems with climate science, especially as the CRU’s work is duplicated by two other laboratories. However, observers have suggested it helped produce a change in public opinion which was a major factor in the failure of the UN’s Copenhagen summit on climate change in December 2009. Although the UK brought in emissions trading this March with the CRC regulations, similar legislation has been stalled in the US.

Not open enough, says Sir Muir

The enquiry said that the ‘rigour and honesty’ of scientists was not in doubt, but it did state that the Climatic Research Unit was not sufficiently open.

According to the panel inquiry the scientists did not subvert the peer review process to censor criticism as alleged, while key data needed to reproduce their findings was freely available to any “competent” researcher.

However, the panel did criticise the scientists for not being open enough about their work, and said they were “unhelpful and defensive” when responding to legitimate requests made under freedom of information (FOI) laws. According to one review panel member, the Lancet editor Richard Horton, the UEA “fell badly short of its scientific and public obligations”.

MPs’ Inquiry showed FoI failing

In March, a committee of MPs similarly found the scientists to have been well-intentioned, but claimed they had failed to answer requests for data under the Freedom of Information Act, a finding backed up by the Information Commissioner.

“Ultimately this has to be about what they did, not what they said,” said Sir Russell. “The honesty and rigour of CRU as scientists are not in doubt … We have not found any evidence of behaviour that might undermine the conclusions of the IPCC assessments.”

However, Sir Muir did call for “a concerted and sustained campaign to win hearts and minds” to restore confidence in the team’s work.

The inquiry findings come after another inquiry in April, led by Lord Oxburgh, also found no evidence of any deliberate scientific malpractice in any work of the Climatic Research Unit. That inquiry, also set up by the University, did however offer some mild criticism of the CRU’s failure to use professional statisticians in an area which “depends so heavily on statistical methods”.