NZ data to feature in fightback over emails

Data related to New Zealand's rising temperatures is being used by British scientists. Photo / Alan Gibson

Evidence of rising temperatures in New Zealand is being used by Britain in an effort to lessen damage to public opinion caused by leaked scientific emails.

As negotiators gathered in Copenhagen last night to strike a climate deal, scientists around the world were dealing with the continuing fallout from the emails, which appear to show leading experts avoided releasing data to their critics.

The British Met Office has promised to publish data from more than 1000 weather stations worldwide this week proving global warming is real, after the emails, held at the University of East Anglia's climatic research unit, were leaked onto the internet.

The British Met Office has written to 188 countries, including New Zealand, asking for permission to release their raw data.

Niwa's top climate scientist, David Wratt, said data from about 18 New Zealand climate stations would be published in the UK, although he stressed the information had always been publicly available on Niwa's website.

He said the Met Office wrote last week to New Zealand's permanent representative on the World Meteorological Organisation, Neil Gordon, who gave it permission to publish the New Zealand data British scientists use to monitor global temperatures.

As delegates in Copenhagen prepared to begin negotiations, the United Nations' top climate official, Yvo de Boer, conceded the hacked emails had damaged the image of global warming research - though he said evidence the planet was warming remained solid.

Mr de Boer said the emails fuelled scepticism among those who believed the science was manipulated to exaggerate global warming.

"When they have the feeling ... that scientists are manipulating information in a certain direction then of course it causes concern in a number of people to say, 'You see, I told you so. This is not a real issue'."

Phil Jones, director of East Anglia's climatic research unit - has stood down pending the results of an independent inquiry into whether data was manipulated.

In a stolen document that has become known as the Harry-Read-Me text file, one of the university's senior computer programmers rails against having to sort out errors, duplication and inaccuracies in some of the raw climate data from around the world.

His criticisms appear to relate to the construction of the unit's climate database and not the validity of historical temperature records.

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