Editorial: Without candour, we can鈥檛 trust climate science
IT鈥橲 time to abandon the black-and-white fiction that human-induced climate change is fact or conspiracy. Instead, accept that the climate is changing and that there are shades of grey about how fast, how severe the impact will be and what we can do about it.
That鈥檚 the message from leading scientists digesting the UK鈥檚 official report into the 鈥渃limategate鈥� affair, in which private emails from the nation鈥檚 Climatic Research Unit at the University of East Anglia in Norwich were made public in November 2009.
Advertisement
Muir Russell, a former civil servant who spent seven months investigating the affair, , released on 7 July, that 鈥渢he rigour and honesty of the scientists involved are not in doubt鈥�. But he exhorted them to show more openness, to shed their 鈥渦nhelpful and defensive鈥� attitude when responding to requests to share their data and to make more effort to engage with climate sceptics who dispute their data and conclusions.
The scientists we contacted agreed with these suggestions. On sharing data, glaciologist Richard Alley at Pennsylvania State University in University Park says: 鈥淲e鈥檙e learning how to do this, and to make it more useful to the public and other scientists.鈥�
But overall, the scientists felt that the main legacy of the sorry saga will be the perpetuation of the myth that the world is split into climate-change 鈥渟ceptics鈥� and 鈥渂elievers鈥�.
鈥淚t shouldn鈥檛 be seen that scientists can鈥檛 agree; that there鈥檚 black and white,鈥� says of the Grantham Institute for Climate Change in London. 鈥淲e鈥檙e all on shades of grey and we have to be able to discuss those, and their implications.鈥�
鈥淲ithin the scientific community, assessment bodies should strive for a diversity of viewpoints to be included, so that uncertainties and disputes are aired out in the open,鈥� says of the University of Colorado at Boulder.
Questioning climate science is what good scientists do, Hoskins adds. 鈥淎s for people with a political agenda, will the report silence them? No.鈥�
