Climate change e-mail storm hots up

The e-mail leakage has not only provided deeper insight into climate change scientific establishment but also sparked controversy from the blogosphere, where readers questioned the legitimacy of the data provided by the scientists at the Climatic Research Unit (CRU) of the University of East Anglia.

The leaked documents highlight the correspondence between prominent climate change researchers on how to discredit global warming skeptics.

E-mails misunderstood
As controversy is gaining momentum, scientists are trying all they can do to assuage the issue.

Climatolgist Michael Mann was quoted by Reuters as saying, “What they've done is search through stolen personal emails—confidential between colleagues who often speak in a language they understand and is often foreign to the outside world, " thus turning "something innocent into something nefarious".

In a statement, Phil Jones, director at CRU admitted, “My colleagues and I accept that some of the published emails do not read well.

"Some were clearly written in the heat of the moment, others use colloquialisms frequently used between close colleagues.”

Apart from claiming that e-mails were not read well, scientists argue that climate change is based on all kinds of evidence.

Don Wuebbles of the University of Illinois in Urbana-Champaign told USA Today, that the melting of the Arctic ice proves there is global warming. “It doesn't take a genius to see, obviously, warming is happening, e-mails or not."

Probing the issue
After the long broiling debate over e-mails leaked from the British university, investigators probing the hack are gearing to answers all issues like-

•If scientists had faked the data to present the theory that humans are responsible for global warming.

•How does that data impact conclusion on climate change?

•How did the hack occur- was it politically motivated?

Findings into the enquiry are expected to be made public this week but the officials have not confirmed the date.

A petition has already been prepared in UK condemning CRU and asking for it to be suspended from presenting any data on natural and anthropogenic climate change, until it is acquitted of all allegations.

Climate change data thrown away
Though the officials have launched an investigation, they will not be able to check the basic calculations on which the findings of the CRU are based as scientists at the British university have admitted dumping raw temperature data on which they have based their study.

It disclosed the loss after a request for the original data from Freedom of Information legislation.

CRU has stated on its Web site, “We do not hold the original raw data but only the value-added (quality controlled and homogenised) data.”

It means that officials will not be able to verify the authenticity of the data provided by the scientists.

CRU has reported a long term increase in temperature in last 150 years and added, “Increased concentrations of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere due to human activities are most likely the underlying cause of warming in the 20th century.”

Its findings were included in the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's report in 2007.