Hurricane Chief: Probe Climategate

A former director of the National Hurricane Center called Sunday for an investigation into the “scientific debauchery revealed by ‘Climategate,’” citing the way global warming skeptics have been marginalized by the mainstream media.

Neil Frank, who was director of the National Hurricane Center from 1974 to 1987 called for the investigation Sunday in an article in the Houston Chronicle.

“Particularly disturbing was the way the core IPCC scientists (the believers) marginalized the skeptics of the theory that man-made global warming is large and potentially catastrophic,” Frank wrote. “The e-mails document that the attack on the skeptics was twofold. First, the believers gained control of the main climate-profession journals. This allowed them to block publication of papers written by the skeptics and prohibit unfriendly peer review of their own papers. Second, the skeptics were demonized through false labeling and false accusations.

The science isn’t settled, Frank wrote, despite what “climate alarmists” would lead you to believe. They also attack skeptics by painting them as tools of Big Oil or questioning their qualifications. But they are “numerous and well qualified,” Frank wrote.

“Several years ago two scientists at the University of Oregon became so concerned about the overemphasis on man-made global warming that they put a statement on their Web site and asked for people's endorsement; 32,000 have signed the petition, including more than 9,000 Ph.Ds. More than 700 scientists have endorsed a 231-page Senate minority report that questions man-made global warming.

"Skeptics believe that climate models are grossly over predicting future warming from rising concentrations of carbon dioxide, Frank wrote. “We are being told that numerical models that cannot make accurate 5- to 10-day forecasts can be simplified and run forward for 100 years with results so reliable you can impose an economic disaster on the U.S. and the world,” he added.

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