Leaked Emails Prompt Calls for Transparency in Climate Research

In the wake of leaked emails in which some climate change researchers both tried to block access to their own data and to discourage the publication of dissenting opinions, many are calling for increased transparency in the field.

The emails and files were leaked from computers at the University of East Anglia’s Climatic Research Unit in England. Some of them suggest that researchers were manipulating and blocking access to data and hindering efforts to evaluate their work.

Since the emails’ release, Republicans have asked the U.S. EPA to delay its efforts to regulate CO2 emissions under the Clean Air Act until it can be established that the science prompting action is not “compromised.”

The chairman of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has said it will investigate the emails and attendant accusations, though it also maintains that its reports are not undermined because they are based on extensive research into global warming, while the emails only pertain to a small number of papers.

Scientists’ views differ about the implications of the leaked emails, with some suggesting that the field is compromised and others noting that the peer-review process still ultimately ensures the integrity of scientific progress.

U.S. funding agencies require researchers to release their data to the public within two years of its acquisition, but advocates of transparency say the requirement is not adequately enforced. If climate data were more widely available, interested members of the public could look more closely at the science.

Some have called for the IPCC process to be adjusted to ban the researchers involved in this controversy or at least bar contributors from evaluating their own work.

John Holdren, President Obama’s science adviser, told Congress that global warming science was sound, even though it might be incomplete, and added that he would “denounce” the manipulation of scientific data if it is revealed that this occurred.

Return to December 2009 Western Energy News

To sponsor Western Energy News, please contact WEI at 503 231-1994.