British ‘climategate’ scientists cleared of wrongdoing

LONDON - British scientists accused of manipulating climate change data were not involved in any “deliberate scientific malpractice”, an independent review published Wednesday said.

The row which erupted in December centred on hacked emails from the University of East Anglia’s Climatic Research Unit (CRU) which sceptics claimed showed that the experts had manipulated data to support a theory of man-made global warming.

But a detailed review of 11 scientific papers from the CRU published over 20 years found “absolutely no evidence of any impropriety whatsoever”, according to the inquiry.

It said the scientists at the research unit arrived at their conclusions “honestly and sensibly”. The investigations were carried out by a panel of independent scientists, led by Ronald Oxburgh, a geologist.

The review did not analyse whether the conclusions drawn by the scientists were correct, but gave the scientific processes at the CRU a “clean bill of health”, said Oxburgh.

He said the reviewers found that the CRU scientists could have used “better statistical methods” in analysing some of their data, but that it was unlikely to have made much difference to their results.

The row overshadowed the discussions at the UN special conference on climate change in Copenhagen last December. The head of the CRU, Professor Phil Jones, stepped down from his post for the duration of the investigations.