Two G.O.P. Lawmakers Spar Over Climate Study - The Archive - The New York Times

Two G.O.P. Lawmakers Spar Over Climate Study - The Archive - The New York Times: "Two G.O.P. Lawmakers Spar Over Climate Study
By ANDREW C. REVKIN (NYT) 435 words
Published: July 18, 2005

Two G.O.P. Lawmakers Spar Over Climate Study

By ANDREW C. REVKIN (NYT) 435 words
Published: July 18, 2005

A public dispute has flared between two Republican House committee chairmen over an inquiry one of them began last month into the integrity of an influential study of global temperature trends.

The study, published in 1998 and 1999, meshed data from modern thermometers and evidence of past warmth or cold, like variations in tree rings. The result was a curve showing little variation for nearly 1,000 years and then a sharp upward hook in recent decades.

The inquiry was initiated by Representative Joe L. Barton of Texas, who heads the House Committee on Energy and Commerce, after two Canadians with no expertise in climate change published academic papers and opinion articles challenging the study's methods.

Letters requesting detailed responses to the criticisms as well as raw data, documents and financial information were sent last month by the committee to the scientists who generated the graph: Michael E. Mann, the climatologist who led the research and has just become the director of the Earth System Science Center at Pennsylvania State University; Raymond S. Bradley, a climatologist at the University of Massachusetts; and Malcolm K. Hughes, a tree-ring expert at the University of Arizona.

The inquiry has since been criticized by scientists and Democratic lawmakers. Now the critics have been joined by Representative Sherwood Boehlert of New York, the chairman of the House Science Committee, who late last week sent a letter to Mr. Barton calling the investigation ''misguided and illegitimate.''

Copies of the letter were provided to several reporters.

Mr. Boehlert noted that other recent analyses have supported the main conclusion of the study: that the climate's warming since the late 20th century appears to be significantly outside the bounds of natural variability.

But Mr. Barton's inquiry focuses on the critique by the Canadians, Steven McIntyre, an amateur statistician and mining consultant, and Ross McKitrick, an economist at the University of Guelph.

In his letter to Mr. Barton, Mr. Boehlert said the effort ''raises the specter of politicians opening investigations against any scientist who reaches a conclusion that makes the political elite uncomfortable.''

In a statement sent by e-mail to several reporters, Larry Neal, a spokesman for the Energy and Commerce Committee, responded to Mr. Boehlert's letter.

''Requests for information are a common exercise of the Energy and Commerce Committee's responsibility to gather knowledge on matters within its jurisdiction,'' the statement said. ''When global warming studies were criticized and results seemed hard to replicate by other researchers, asking why seemed like a modest but necessary step. It still does.''