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Head of 'Climategate' research unit admits sending 'pretty awful emails' to hide data Scientists at the heart of the Climategate row were yesterday accused by a leading academic body of undermining science's credibility. The Institute of Physics said 'worrying implications' had been raised after it was revealed the University of East Anglia had manipulated data on global warming. The rebuke - the strongest yet from the scientific community - came as Professor Phil Jones, the researcher at the heart of the scandal, told MPs he had written 'some pretty awful emails' - but denied trying to suppress data. Professor Phil Jones On the spot: Professor Phil Jones being grilled by the Science and Technology committee in the Commons yesterday The Climategate row, which was first revealed by the Daily Mail in November, was triggered when a hacker stole hundreds of emails sent from East Anglia's Climatic Research Unit. They revealed scientists plotting how to avoid responding to Freedom of Information requests from climate change sceptics. Some even appeared to show the researchers discussing how to manipulate raw data from tree rings about historical temperatures. In one, Professor Jones talks about using a 'trick' to massage figures and 'hide the decline'.
More... * 'Environmentally-friendly' biofuels are more harmful to the planet than normal fossil fuel * It's official: This winter was the coldest for more than 30 years * QUENTIN LETTS: Lord Lawson labelled them climate alarmists Giving evidence to a Science and Technology Committee inquiry, the Institute of Physics said: 'Unless the disclosed emails are proved to be forgeries or adaptations, worrying implications arise for the integrity of scientific research and for the credibility of the scientific method. 'The principle that scientists should be willing to expose their results to independent testing and replication by others, which requires the open exchange of data, procedures and materials, is vital.' Last month, the Information Commissioner ruled the CRU had broken Freedom of Information rules by refusing to hand over raw data. But yesterday Professor Jones - in his first public appearance since the scandal broke - denied manipulating the figures. Looking pale and clasping his shaking hands in front of him, he told MPs: 'I have obviously written some pretty awful emails.' He admitted withholding data about global temperatures but said the information was publicly available from American websites. And he claimed it was not 'standard practice' to release data and computer models so other scientists could check and challenge research. 'I don't think there is anything in those emails that really supports any view that I, or the CRU, have been trying to pervert the peer review process in any way,' he said. Professor Jones, who was forced to stand down as head of the CRU last year, also insisted the scientific findings on climate change were robust. By David DerbyshireLast updated at 8:34 AM on 02nd March 2010 Al's latest global-warming whopperAl's latest global-warming whopperLast Updated: 9:03 AM, March 2, 2010 Al Gore's defense of global-warming hysteria in Sunday's New York Times has many flaws, but I'll focus on just one whopper -- where the "Inconvenient Truth" man states the opposite of scientific fact. Gore says, "The heavy snowfalls this month have been used as fodder for ridicule by those who argue that global warming is a myth, yet scientists have long pointed out that warmer global temperatures have been increasing the rate of evaporation from the oceans, putting significantly more moisture into the atmosphere -- thus causing heavier downfalls of both rain and snow in particular regions, including the Northeastern United States."Gore: Still citing predictions that science has disproved.Gore: Still citing predictions that science has disproved. It's an interesting theory, but where are the facts? According to "State of the Climate" from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, "Global precipitation in 2009 was near the 1961-1990 average." And there was certainly no pattern of increasing rain and snow on America's East Coast during the post-1976 years, when NOAA says the globe began to heat up. So what was it, exactly, that Gore's nameless scientists "have long pointed out"? A 2008 report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, "Climate Change and Water," says climate models "project precipitation increases in high latitudes and part of the tropics." In other areas, the IPCC reports only "substantial uncertainty in precipitation forecasts." In other words, the IPCC said that its models predicted some increases in rain or snow -- not observed them. And only in high latitudes or the tropics, which hardly describes New York or Washington, DC. In fact, recent research actually contra dicts Gore's claims about "significantly more water moisture in the atmosphere." In late January, Scientific American reported: "A mysterious drop in water vapor in the lower stratosphere might be slowing climate change," and noted that "an apparent increase in water vapor in this region in the 1980s and 1990s exacerbated global warming." The new study came from a group of scientists, mainly from the NOAA lab in Boulder. The scientists found: "Stratospheric water-vapor concentrations decreased by about 10 percent after the year 2000 . . . This acted to slow the rate of increase in global surface temperature over 2000 to 2009 by about 25 percent." Specifically, the study found that water vapor rising from the tropics has been re duced, because it has gotten cooler there (another inconvenient truth). A Wall Street Journal headline summed it up: "Slowdown in Warming Linked to Water Vapor." Moisture in the lower stratosphere (about 8 miles above the earth's surface) has been going down, not up. Aside from clouds, water vapor accounts for as much as two-thirds of the earth's greenhouse-gas effect. Water vapor traps heat from escaping the atmosphere -- but clouds have the opposite effect (called "albedo") by reflecting the sun's energy back into space. And snow on the ground from the IPCC's predicted precipitation in high latitudes would have the same cooling effect as clouds. What the new research suggests is that changes in water vapor may well trump the ef fect of carbon dioxide (only a fraction of which is man-made) and methane (which has mysteriously slowed since about 1990). This raises an intriguing question: Since the Environmental Protection Agency declared that it has the authority to regulation carbon emissions because of their presumed effect on the global climate, why hasn't the EPA also attempted to regulate mist and fog? Alan Reynolds, a Cato Institute senior fellow, is author of "Income and Wealth." Read more: http://www.nypost.com/p/news/opinion/opedcolumnists/al_latest_global_warming_whopper_TolFbG2ccT5XPtKtXoOx0L#ixzz0h3wXZ9Va
  
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