Climate Integrity

A major British report has been issued relating to the famous pirated emails from East Anglia.  The report concludes:

Climate science is a matter of such global importance, that the highest standards of honesty, rigour and openness are needed in its conduct. On the specific allegations made against the behaviour of CRU scientists, we find that their rigour and honesty as scientists are not in doubt.

In addition, we do not find that their behaviour has prejudiced the balance of advice given to policy makers. In particular, we did not find any evidence of behaviour that might undermine the conclusions of the IPCC assessments.

The report did find a consistent failure to provide sufficient transparency as required under the British equivalent of FOIA.  Hopefully, British scientists will improve their compliance in the future.  But the main point is that the emails don’t create any doubt about the integrity of climate science or its conclusions.

Of course, it would be foolish to think that any investigation, regardless of how thorough, would silence the conspiracy theorists on the blogosphere.   But for those who are more a part of the “reality-based community,” this report should be reassuring.

climate science, emailgate