Pew Center: Leaked Climate E-mails 'Do Not Reveal Scientific Misconduct'

The Pew Center on Global Climate Change released a statement Wednesday examining the leaked e-mails that provoked an international furor and emboldened global warming skeptics, who see them as proof of a conspiracy to promote the theory of man-made global warming. The Pew Center concluded that the e-mails, in which climate scientists from the University of East Anglia debated data and insulted research they saw as inferior, "do not appear to reveal fraud or other scientific misconduct."

"The vast majority of the 1000+ emails are routine and unsuspicious. Perhaps one or two dozen of the email exchanges give the appearance of controversy, though no unethical behavior has yet been documented," the statement said, noting that some of the exchanges were "impolite" and "express animosity toward opponents."

The statement goes on to list the accusations of those referring to the situation as "Climategate," including one e-mail in which a scientist mentioned using a "trick" to hide data. In context, the professor was referring to two sets of data that did not match -- a problem he revealed in a paper published several years before.

The Pew Center concludes that even if the East Anglia e-mails were proved to reveal fraud, they would be unlikely to affect the consensus on climate change.

"Although there is no clear evidence of scientific fraud or misconduct at this early stage, if further investigation were to reveal that misconduct had occurred, the scientific consensus regarding human‐induced climate change, as stated by the IPCC, the U.S. National Academy of Sciences, and virtually every relevant scientific body is not likely to be affected."