Climate change climbdown: scientists agree to reexamine data

CLIMATE scientists are to re-examine 150 years of global temperature records in an attempt to regain the public trust rocked by revelations about errors and withheld data.

The Met Office put forward the proposal, which was accepted, at a meeting of the World Meteorological Organization this week.

In a document entitled Proposal For A New International Analysis Of Land Surface Air Temperature Data, the Met Office said: “We feel it is timely to propose an international effort to re-analyze surface temperature data in collaboration with the World Meteorological Organization.” The new assessment would be ­independent and based on publicly available data that could be challenged by climate-change skeptics.

Met Office spokesman John Hammond said: “The assessment would bring together the best scientists from the top meteorological institutions around the world.”

And he said they would be using data collected worldwide, dating back as far as 1850.

The re-analysis is designed to support claims put out by the Inter governmental Panel On Climate Change but could overturn the widely believed theory that global warming is man-made. The World Meteorological Organization said the Met Office proposal had been approved in principle by delegates at a meeting in Turkey this week.

(Personally, I think this is a very good idea. Open the entire process up for public inspection. Shine a light on the scientific method and how "good science" is performed. This is a necessary step to regain public trust on this issue. The entire article in the UK's "Express" is here).