Climategate Investigation A Monumental Whitewash

A Parliamentary investigation into the climategate scandal has cleared the scientists involved of any data fixing and subversion of the peer review process, and notes that the scandal provides no evidence to challenge the notion that human activity is causing catastrophic global warming.

The House of Commons’ Science and Technology Committee Report (PDF), the first of three investigations into climategate, produced its report after only a single day of oral testimony.

The report concludes that UN IPCC affiliated scientists at the University of East Anglia’s Climatic Research Unit, led by director Phil Jones (pictured at the hearing), did not tamper with data in an effort to exaggerate the threat of global warming.

The Report states that “The scientific reputation of Professor Jones and CRU remains intact”.

The committee added that it found nothing sinister in Jones’ use of the words “hide the decline” and “trick” with regards to data on temperature changes.

The committee contends that when Jones stated “hide the decline” in an email to his colleagues, he was referring to discarding erroneous data, rather than deliberately concealing it.

The report also states that Jones’ use of the word ‘trick’ “appears to be a colloquialism for a ‘neat’ method of handling data".'

Read more...