New trove of e-mails from scientists released

Hacker,who shook world of climate science two years ago,delivers new batch of emails ahead of summit

The anonymous hacker who shook the world of climate science two years ago by posting a trove of stolen e-mails delivered a new batch on Tuesday,stirring up climate-change contrarians a little more than a week before global negotiations on greenhouse gases are to begin in Durban,South Africa.

The new e-mails appeared remarkably similar to the ones released two years ago just ahead of a similar conference in Copenhagen. They involved the same scientists and many of the same issues,and some of them carried a similar tone: catty remarks by the scientists,often about papers written by others in the field.

Climate scientists said the release was likely intended to torpedo any potential progress in the Durban negotiations,though not much progress had been expected anyway given that countries have been reluctant to commit to binding emissions limits.

The University of East Anglia,the British institution at the middle of the previous hacking episode,confirmed that at least some of the newly released e-mails were authentic. The cache released in 2009 appeared to have come from a file someone obtained by hacking into the universitys computers,a crime for which no charges have been filed or suspects named. The new batch of more than 5,000 e-mails is evidently a fresh selection from the same set of records.

A string of investigations following the 2009 release all came to the conclusion that scientists had not manipulated data to support their findings,though some of the reports did criticise them on minor points,such as failing to share their data or to respond properly to freedom of information requests. Myron Ebell,a climate-change skeptic who works for the Competitive Enterprise Institute,a free-market think tank based in Washington,called the new e-mails strong evidence that a small group of scientists centered around East Anglia were engaged in a conspiracy to provide a scientifically misleading assessment of the case for catastrophic global warming. Senator James M Inhofe,the Oklahoma Republican who is the most prominent climate-change contrarian in Congress,cited the e-mails in a statement attacking the Obama administrations attempts to limit greenhouse gases.

But Michael E Mann,a Pennsylvania State University scientist who wrote or received some of the e-mails,said they showed the opposite of any conspiracy,demonstrating instead that climate science is a vigorous enterprise where scientists were free to argue over conclusions. Scientists rely on the ability to have frank,sometimes even contentious discussions with each other, Dr Mann said. JUSTIN GILLIS

amp; LESLIE KAUFMAN