University rebuts ‘climategate’ accusations

Financial Times, 25 February 2010

The university whose climate scientists’ e-mails sparked the “climategate” uproar provided its first detailed rebuttal of the accusations on Thursday.

E-mails hacked from the climatic research unit of the University of East Anglia last November and distributed on the internet appeared to show climate-change scientists concealing information and manipulating data to fit their theories.

But the UEA published an eight-page response tackling each of the key claims. It will be submitted to an influential committee of MPs that has launched an inquiry into the scandal. The UEA has separately commissioned two independent inquiries.

Phil Jones, the UEA professor at the heart of the controversy, will testify before the parliamentary committee on Monday, along with other climate scientists and prominent sceptics including Lord Lawson of Blaby, the former chancellor of the exchequer.

The UEA denied that it had refused to release data following requests from climate change sceptics under the Freedom of Information Act.

In some cases, data had been supplied, it said, but in other cases the data was incomplete because some of the data used by the university in its research was owned by institutions that refused permission for its disclosure.

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