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Climate controversy: Backing for scientists
A distinguished panel of independent scientists has given a resounding vote of confidence in the credibility and integrity of the key studies into climate change that have emerged over the past 20 years from the embattled Climatic Research Unit (CRU) at the University of East Anglia.
The panel, chaired by Lord Oxburgh, a geologist and former rector of Imperial College London, was asked to review the scientific papers and methodology of the CRU following the theft of university emails, the leaking of which suggested a possible conspiracy to subvert data in order to support the case for man-made climate change.
Lord Oxburgh's investigation found no evidence to suggest that the CRU scientists had acted improperly or dishonestly. It found the unit's overall conclusions were sound but it criticized the CRU for not using the best statistical tools to analyze the data–although this misjudgment did not alter the overall results and conclusions.
Questions about the integrity of the CRU emerged after the theft of internal emails last year, which were released on the internet just before the Copenhagen climate summit in December. Climate "skeptics" argued that the emails demonstrated that Professor Phil Jones, the CRU's director, was prepared to fiddle the data in order to prove that the world was warming at an unprecedented rate.
Lord Oxburgh and his six co-panelists reviewed 11 representative studies going back 20 years as part of their independent investigation, ordered by the University of East Anglia. It is the second of three inquiries into what became known as "climategate," and it concentrated on the scientific integrity of the research in question.