Standing Up to Pernicious New Attacks on Federal Climate Scientists

The time-tested climate denial strategy of attacking the reputations of prominent climate scientists in order to sow doubt about the evidence and risks of climate change is being trotted out again.

Peter Frumhoff is a
 global change ecologist
and serves as chief
scientist for the UCS
 climate campaign.

Exhibit A: The Daily Mail, a British tabloid, has published a screed by David Rose alleging serious scientific misconduct by Dr. Tom Karl, a leading climate scientist recently retired from the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).

A writer with a history of inaccurate reporting on climate science, Rose claims that Karl and coauthors deliberately used misleading global temperature data, side-stepped NOAA scientific integrity policies, and “rushed to publish” a 2015 paper in the prestigious journal Science in order to influence the climate negotiations held that year in Paris. His piece draws in part on a blog post by former NOAA scientist John Bates.

The Science paper is one of several recent studies refuting the notion that the rate of global warming had slowed down, or “paused”, in recent decades, an idea that opponents of climate policies have often used to justify inaction on reducing emissions. 

Karl and coauthors showed the apparent “pause” in warming was simply an artifact of how earlier studies had over time incorporated data on ocean surface temperatures from different sources (satellites, ships, buoys and so on); when temperature data sources and quality were properly taken into account, no slowdown was detectable.

Read the Union of Concerned Scientists story by Peter Frumhoff - “Standing Up to Pernicious New Attacks on Federal Climate Scientists.”