JULY 7, 2010, 9:13 A.M. ET
'Climategate' Inquiry Largely Vindicates Scientists
LONDON—An independent British report into the leak of hundreds of emails from one of the world's leading climate research centers has largely vindicated the scientists involved, something many in the field hope will help calm the global uproar dubbed "Climategate."
The inquiry by former U.K. civil servant Muir Russell into the scandal at the University of East Anglia's Climatic Research Unit found there was no evidence of dishonesty or corruption in the more than 1,000 e-mails that were posted to the Internet late last year. But he did chide the scientists involved for failing to share their data with critics.
Chairman of the review group, Sir Muir Russell talks to the media on their findings at the Royal Institution in London, Tuesday, July 7, during the release of their report into the University of East Anglia e-mails on climate change.
."We find that their rigor and honesty as scientists are not in doubt," Mr. Russell said. "But we do find that there has been a consistent pattern of failing to display the proper degree of openness."
Mr. Russell's inquiry into the scandal is the third major investigation into the theft and dissemination of the emails, which caused a sensation when they were published online in November, right before the U.N. climate change conference at Copenhagen.
The messages captured researchers speaking in scathing terms about their critics, discussing ways to stonewall skeptics of man-made climate change, and talking about how to freeze opponents out of peer-reviewed journals.
The ensuing scandal energized skeptics and destabilized the international climate change talks in Copenhagen. The research center's director, Phil Jones, stepped down and Mr. Russell, a former civil servant unaffiliated with the university, to investigate.
Many who study climate science or work in policy-related fields say the furor has put them in a difficult position.
"This has cast doubt over the whole community," Bob Ward, the policy director of the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change at the London School of Economics, said ahead of the report's publication.
Mr. Ward said the scandal put scientists on notice that they were operating in a highly politicized environment—one in which personal conduct could come under as much scrutiny as the science itself.
Mr. Russell's report examined whether there was any evidence that scientists at the Climatic Research Unit doctored or suppressed data, perverted the peer review process, or improperly blocked Freedom of Information requests—something Britain's data-protection watchdog has already scolded the university for doing.
The report follows a British parliamentary inquiry that largely backed the scientists involved and another independent investigation that gave a clean bill of health to the science itself.
The reports have been criticized by skeptics who alleged they were incomplete or biased.
It has been difficult to gauge the impact of the scandal, which played widely in the British and U.S. media. In Britain, there is some evidence that public concern over global warming has been diluted, although not by much.
An Ipsos MORI poll published last month suggested that 78% of Britons believed that the world's climate was changing, compared with 91% five years earlier.
Some 71% of respondents expressed concern about global warming, versus 82% in 2005. The pollster surveyed 1,822 people aged 15 and over in interviews between January and March 2010.
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