LONDON (March 31) -- Professor Phil Jones, the scientist at the center of the "Climategate" scandal, has been cleared of manipulating global warming data by a British government investigation.
The chief of the University of East Anglia's Climatic Research Unit was thrown into the spotlight in November, when hackers leaked hundreds of messages snatched from CRU e-mail accounts. Some of the messages -- released shortly before the Copenhagen Climate Summit -- appeared to show Jones calling on colleagues to withhold or destroy scientific data requested under Britain's Freedom of Information laws. In one e-mail, Jones talked about using a "trick" to "hide the decline" in temperature records sourced from tree ring data in the 1960s.
PA Wire
Climate scientist Phil Jones, here at a hearing in London on March 1, did not embark on a "systematic attempt to mislead" people about global warming data, a panel found.Climate skeptics argued that the incriminating messages proved that the CRU had deliberately hidden vital information and falsified scientific evidence on global warming.
However, the House of Commons Science and Technology Committee -- made up of 14 parliamentarians -- declared in a 60-page report that it was convinced the phrases were "colloquial terms used in private e-mails" and "were not part of a systematic attempt to mislead."
It also refuted suggestions that the e-mails indicated CRU had acted in an unscientific manner, and that the climate center was part of a wider global warming hoax. "Within our limited inquiry and the evidence we took, the reputation of Professor Jones and the CRU remains intact," the parliamentary panel said. "We have found no reason in this unfortunate episode to challenge the scientific consensus that global warming is happening and is induced by human activity."
Though the team's science was given the all-clear, Jones was strongly criticized for repeatedly blocking or ignoring troublesome data requests. Jones has previously said that skeptics -- possibly organized by Steve McIntyre, who runs the blog ClimateAudit.org -- deliberately flooded the CRU's 13 staff with Freedom of Information requests to slow their work. The government committee said it could "sympathize" with the frustration Jones must have felt handling requests that "he knew -- or perceived -- were motivated by a desire simply to undermine his work." However, it said that this "culture of withholding information ... from those perceived by CRU to be hostile to global warming" was "unacceptable"
"In reality, that's no excuse," committee chairman Phil Willis told reporters. "If people want that information for whatever motive, provided it is a scientific motive, it's important in terms of confidence to make that available."
The panel ordered the CRU to change its approach to releasing data, or risk further damaging efforts to combat global warming across the world. "Climate change is a matter of global importance," Willis said. "Governments are spending trillions of pounds on mitigating global warming, and the quality of the science has to be irreproachable."
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