December 2009 Archives

As the UK science community reels from steep budget cuts, other countries are facing unexpected financial pressures, and in some cases bonuses.

The French university sector is expected to receive an €11-billion (US$16-billion) windfall from a government initiative intended to create an "Ivy League" of research centers, reports NatureNews.

The fund is part of a €35 billion package announced by French President Nicolas Sarkozy on 14 December. Sarkozy has indicated for weeks that he considers investment in research and development crucial for the long-term viability of France, particularly in light of the billion-dollar investment the US made in science as part of the stimulus package.

A shock to the system

The new Japanese government, which was elected in September—the first new government by a major opposition party in more than 50 years—campaigned on a platform of increased science spending only to announce drastic budget cuts of up to 50% to a number of high-profile science facilities and programs as part of a program to cut next year's budget by ¥3 trillion (US$ 33.7 billion).

The cuts were planned by a new cabinet-level government advisory unit called the Government Revitalization Unit and chaired by the country's Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama.

The cuts will hit Japan's Subaru telescope in Hawaii, SPring-8 synchrotron in Harima, a planned $1.3 billion supercomputer that was destined to be the world's fastest, neutrino research at the Super-Kamiokande detector, ocean drilling projects and basic grant programs.

A statement on the SPring-8 website says

"The working group of the Government Revitalization Unit, identifying wasteful spending, recommended that our budget request for the fiscal 2010 should be cut by between 1/3 and 1/2, and the Unit has agreed to respect the recommendations made by the working group on November 30, 2009.

"Under the circumstances, we are deeply concerned that if the budget is compiled according to the recommendations, the funding shortfall would seriously affect our users, possibly making it impossible for us to provide synchrotron radiation at all. We will do our best efforts to avoid such a situation."

Fighting back

It did not take long for researchers at the facilities to start campaigning to get their funding restored.

Yoichiro Suzuki, the spokesperson for Super-Kamiokande, points out that the detector is expected to make several important future observations, beyond the previous discovery of the neutrino mass.

"If the observations are stopped even for a short period by a budget cut, [Super-Kamiokande] may miss the possibility of the detection of the neutrinos from a supernova burst. Also, the quality of the detector may deteriorate.

Neutrino research in Japan, which has developed over the past 10 years or more to the top rank in the world, will be stopped and the researchers will disappear.

The drop will be fast.

Japan could quickly become a second- or third-class power in science. Once it falls, it will take another 10 or 20 years to catch up with the top level of the world."

Four Nobel laureates and a Field's medal winner argued against the cuts at a symposium at the University of Tokyo, and presented Hatoyama the next day with a statement signed by eight Japanese Nobel laureates warning that, "Weakening science and technology will lead to the decline of our resource-poor country."

Last week, the Council for Science and Technology Policy (CSTP), Japan's highest science-policy-making body, proposed continued support for those projects and many others.

Final budget decisions will be made later this month, but Hatoyama has called the CSTP proposals "valuable opinions," and said that he would "work to ensure they were reflected in the final budget."

Paul Guinnessy

The House and Senate have passed H.R. 3288, the Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2010, and sent it to President Barack Obama for his signature. Under the bill, funding increases for the National Science Foundation by $436.1 million or 6.7% over the FY 2009 appropriation to $6,926.5 million (excluding additional funds provided by the stimulus bill). The increase is consistent with the ongoing effort to double the agency's budget over a 10-year period.

A Joint Explanatory Statement (JES) provides the appropriators' recommendations regarding the foundation.

The JES expressed concern over the level of support NSF is receiving, particularly in light of the 2011 budget, and hence lawmakers requested that the Obama administration plan for a 7% increase for 2011.

The committee also stated the following:

"The conferees support House direction to the Foundation to convene a panel of experts to survey pre-K to 12 schools that are highly successful in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) education and submit a report of the findings and recommendations of this panel to the Committees within 180 days of the enactment of this Act."

The report stated:

"Within the funds provided, the conferees direct NSF to maintain funding at the levels requested for the following activities:

• Climate change
• Cyber-enabled discovery and innovation
• Science and engineering beyond Moore's law
• Adaptive systems technology
• Dynamics of water processes in the environment
• National Radio Astronomy Observatory

"In addition, the conferees support House direction on high-risk, high-reward basic research,...support for 2,000 graduate research fellowships across all of NSF; climate change education; and funding of EPSCoR [the Department of Energy's Experimental Program to Stimulate Competitive Research]."

The JES also refers to the Gemini telescope, which the UK is pulling out of in 2012.

"The conferees recognize that the Gemini international telescope agreement is scheduled for renewal in 2012. The US currently has a 50% share in this project, which originated in 1992, and today includes the UK, Canada, Australia, Brazil, Argentina, and Chile as partners. Given the scientific importance of the Southern Hemisphere Gemini Observatory, NSF is encouraged to continue and, if possible on favorable terms, expand US support in the upcoming renewal negotiations to acquire additional telescope time for NSF investigators."

The bill includes $46.3 million for Advanced LIGO (Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory), a gravity wave detector; $42.7 million for the Atacama Large Millimeter Array; $13 million for the Advanced Technology Solar Telescope (ATST); $14.3 million for the Ocean Observatories Initiative and $950,000 for the IceCube neutrino telescope.

Written by Richard M. Jones and originally published as FY 2010 National Science Foundation Appropriation
Edited by Paul Guinnessy for Physics Today

One of the UK's leading research councils, the Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC), announced today that it is to drastically cut funding for physics despite an earlier promise by UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown in February that "the downturn is no time to slow down our investment in science but to build more vigorously for the future."

The cuts, designed to save at least £115 million ($200 million), include the UK withdrawing from a number of international projects, including the A Large Ion Collider Experiment (ALICE) at the Large Hadron Collider, UK Infrared Telescope (UKIRT), the New Light Source (NLS), and the Gemini telescopes, (the complete list can be found at the end of this article). They also include cutting PhD fellowships and student grants by 25% next year.

Nuclear physics, as expected from leaks earlier this year, is hit particularly bad with a 52% cut in funding and withdrawal scheduled for the Advanced Gamma Tracking Array (AGATA), a European project to build a powerful spectrometer to look at the structure of atomic nuclei, and the Pan-Andromeda Archaeological Survey (PANDA), a project linked to the Facility for Antiproton and Ion Research (FAIR), a particle accelerator in Germany.

All of the UK's nuclear physics professors have signed up to a letter sent today to the Science Minister Paul Drayson alerting him to the implications of the cuts to the government's proposed push to build 10 new nuclear power plants.

"These out-of-proportion cuts have the potential to kill off the UK skills base in nuclear physics," said Paddy Regan at the University of Surrey.

"How this can be happening at a time of discussions of building new nuclear power plants is incredible. Where does the STFC think the trained manpower that the UK produces from nuclear physics and associated instrumentation and measurement is going to come from?" he added.

A measured retreat

The cuts were announced as the STFC published its funding roadmap for spending £2.4 billion ($4.08 billion) over the next five years. "The council of STFC has approved an affordable, robust and sustainable program," said Michael Sterling, the STFC chairman. "This has involved tough choices affecting the entire program including a managed withdrawal from some areas."

The withdrawal could take up to three years to complete, said STFC CEO Keith Mason, and the STFC may have to conduct another round of funding cuts going forward. "We will ensure a managed withdrawal from those activities that we will no longer support," he said, "taking into account the fact that the academic and research community of scientists is a national resource."

Mason continued, "The program adopted by [the STFC] is extensive and will require both external and internal re-alignment and change. The managed withdrawal from identified projects will allow members of our scientific communities to redirect their efforts, or where possible to seek other sources of funding for their projects.

We have already initiated this process with our staff, universities; partner Research Councils, the Institute of Physics and Royal Astronomical Society, project leaders, international partners and others."

Mason blames the cuts on the devaluation of the pound, caused by "the impact of the international financial situation," which led to a 15.1% rise in its subscriptions to CERN and other international facilities from £214.9 million ($365.3 million) last year to £247.3million ($420 million) in 2009–10. The SCFC also gets £20 million ($34 million) less funding next year.

A bad birth?

The STFC has been plagued with controversy since it was formed from the merger of two research councils the Particle Physics and Astronomy Research Council (PPARC) and and the Council for the Central Laboratory of the Research Councils (CCLRC), in 2007 and immediately found an £80 million ($137 million) shortfall. To balance its budget for next year, the other funding councils are chipping in £14 million ($24 million).

Mark Lancaster, head of particle physics at University College London, called the cuts "being nothing less than disastrous in terms of the shameful waste of a decade's investment in new facilities across STFC science."

"A lost generation of students will be created who are denied the opportunity to do a PhD and cutting-edge science," he added.

The behavior of the UK is viewed with disbelief by countries that can now see that the UK is no longer to be trusted as an international partner in major scientific programs. In several cases, the projects targeted for major cuts or cancellation had elected UK spokespersons whose positions must now look distinctly untenable with a direct loss of UK leadership. The situation for scientists in the UK is made particularly bitter by the knowledge that competitor countries are making investment in science a strategic priority as their economies emerge from recession, while the UK, which used to boast of its desire to build a "knowledge economy" cuts science again and again.

The funding squeeze within the STFC is particularly acute because it failed to secure an adequate settlement when it was formed from the merger of PPARC and CCLRC and has underperformed in attracting funding ever since due to its well-documented failures of leadership.

Brian Foster, head of particle physics at Oxford University, said that the cuts "give the lie to" the promise that science funding was protected from cuts. "This is a sad day for British science: the prime minister should hang his head in shame."

Ian Leslie, pro-vice-chancellor for research at the University of Cambridge, said, "The funding of international subscriptions and major domestic research facilities clearly needs to be rethought.

While it is evident that there will be substantial cuts, this [STFC] statement at least now gives some reassurance to those involved in priority programs.

...Nonetheless, the loss of good science that will result from this announcement is highly regrettable.

At a time when the United States is investing heavily, we believe British withdrawal from international collaborations and proposed cuts to fellowship and PhD funding will prove extremely damaging."

The outcry has not gone unnoticed by the government. Drayson released a statement in which he said:

"It has become clear to me that there are real tensions in having international science projects, large scientific facilities and UK grant giving roles within a single Research Council. It leads to grants being squeezed by increases in costs of the large international projects which are not solely within their control. I will work urgently with Professor Sterling, the STFC and the wider research community to find a better solution by the end of February 2010."

Astronomy cuts

Along with the pullout from Gemini and UKIRT, UK involvement in five space missions will also be phased out—Cassini, Cluster, the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory, Venus Express and >XMM-Newton.

Andy Fabian, president of the Royal Astronomical Society, said:
"With these cuts UK-based researchers will struggle to retain their leading position in astronomy and space science.

Astronomers in the UK are highly productive and deliver this excellence for a relatively low investment compared with their counterparts elsewhere. Research in astronomy is not an area where large 'efficiency savings' can be made without a detrimental impact on the quality of that work.

Given the difficult economic times we live in, we recognize that public sector budgets are all under pressure. But these cuts are a result of the structural and financial problems that have beset STFC since its creation in 2007, rather than being a consequence of the current recession. These problems have led to an ongoing funding gap that now has to be plugged by cuts in the research base, particularly in the budgets for astronomy and particle physics.

We also welcome today's commitment by the Science Minister Drayson, to examine the tensioning that arises from funding international science projects, large scientific facilities, and UK grants within a single research council, and the negative impact this has on the funds available for facilities and researchers."

Fabian continued, "Despite this, we are now seriously concerned at the effect the loss of so many smaller projects will have on the health and morale of physics groups in British universities. The Government has rightly recognized the strategic importance of science for a healthy and more diverse economy. Blue-skies research in subjects like astronomy is an essential component of that scientific base and cutting it now will make it harder for the UK to recover its international position once the economy recovers.

We call on the Department for Business Innovation and Skills (BIS) to take the opportunity to back blue-skies research, including astronomy, in the same way that it has increased its support for the life sciences. UK scientists are world leaders in this area and in recent years have attracted the brightest talent from across the globe to share our success. We urge the Government to plan for the long term and recognize that realizing our shared goals depends at least in part on a sustained investment in a diverse science portfolio.

The savings from cutting astronomy research are, in the scale of public expenditure, trivial. By contrast, the potential damage to one of the UK's leading activities could be huge."

Budget cut

Facilities that the STFC funds that will also see some reductions over the next five years include the Diamond Light Source, the ISIS neutron source, the Central Laser Facility, the Cambridge Astronomical Survey Unit (CASU), and the Wide Field Astronomy Unit (WAFU) at Edinburgh.

A generic particle-physics detector called SPIDER and the upgrade to the vulcan laser at the Rutherford Appleton Laboratory will now both be delayed by a year.

Looking to the future

The move to cut funding from NLS "was a regrettable outcome," said Jon Marangos, NLS project leader, who also looks to the future. "If it is true that the UK cannot at the present time afford to build a free electron laser (FEL) of her own it has also become abundantly clear to me over the last two years that she cannot afford not to play a major part in FEL science."

Jocelyn Bell Burnell, president of the UK Institute of Physics, said, "The greatest shame about today's announcement is the reduced investment in people. With all of the challenges we face, from climate change and energy security to a rapidly aging population, we urgently need individuals well-trained in physics. Today's announcement...runs counter to this need.

"The amount needed to avoid this unfortunate cut is minor in comparison to the huge sums of money spent saving the financial sector, surely money can be found to avoid it."

Paul Guinnessy

While negotiations continue over the formation of an international emissions treaty in Copenhagen (COP15), the run up to the conference helped develop a rash of announcements regarding emission caps and research and development from Brazil, China, India, South Africa and the US.

Although many of these announcements fall short in meeting the goal of trying to limit the mean global temperature rise to 2 °C, it is progress compared to their earlier commitments and lays the groundwork for further negotiation at the COP15 meeting.

All emission data was obtained from http://wwww.climateactiontracker.org

China

During President Barack Obama's recent trip to China, the two nations signed agreements to enhance "cooperation on climate change, energy and environment" announced Chinese President Hu Jintao.

The agreement included the formation of a $150 million US-China clean energy research center, equally funded by both countries for 5 years. The center will act as a clearing house to aid researcher in both countries in areas such as the so-called "clean-coal" technology.

The US and China will also develop joint standards and conduct demonstration projects in more than a dozen cities for the next generation of electric vehicles, and develop a new energy efficiency action plan to improve the energy efficiency of buildings, industry and appliances.

In a surprising move both countries agreed to develop a detailed roadmap to improve and increase electricity generation from renewable energy sources such as wind power—China is already close to being the world's largest user of a wind power despite wind producing only 0.4 percent of China's electricity—and is investing in a "smarter" electrical grid to balance load with demand.

China announced it is aiming for a 40-45 percent "energy efficiency" improvement by 2025 from 2005 levels. This allows for China's greenhouse gas emissions to continue to grow.

The result in Copenhagen "will mostly be on what will be delivered by the United States and China," said EU environment spokesman Andreas Carlgren to reporters on Monday. He said he would be astonished if Obama did not put more on the table.

US

As well as signaling its willingness to strike bilateral deals with the Chinese, the Obama administration also laid the gauntlet down to Congress's reluctance to pass a climate bill.

Earlier this week the Environmental Protection Agency presented its official "findings", that growing concentrations of greenhouse gases "in the atmosphere threaten the public health and welfare of current and future generations."

The US Supreme court announced that the EPA could regulate greenhouse emissions under the clean air act four years ago but it was not until the new administration came into office that the EPA formulated an official finding on the matter.

"This administration will not ignore science or the law any longer, nor will we ignore the responsibility we owe to our children and our grandchildren," said said EPA secretary Lisa Jackson in a press conference.

The implication is that this new policy allows the EPA to regulate all greenhouse gas emissions in the US without input from Congress if the Senate and House of Representatives does not pass a climate bill.

Moreover it strengthens the US public position in the Copenhagen negotiations as it gives the impression that the US is now more committed to cutting emissions than they were three months ago, and has the tools to implement cuts—unlike the previous climate treaty—the 1997 Kyoto Protocol—which was not ratified by the Senate and never went into US law.

Currently the US is aiming for a 3-4 percent cut in CO₂ emissions from 1990, or 30 percent from 2005 levels by 2025, 42 percent by 2030 and 80 percent by 2050.

Europe

Although Prime Minister Gordon Brown's labour party is unlikely to win the next election, they have committed the UK to reducing its greenhouse gas emission by proposing a massive increase in the number of new nuclear reactors to be built in the UK from 1 to 10. The UK government is also proposing additional funds to support the development of renewable power sources such as wind, wave, and solar power. As part of the UK's internal target Brown is proposing that the UK cut CO₂ emissions by 20% over the next ten years (compared to 1990 levels) and 80% by 2050.

According to the Guardian newspaper Brown is proposing that Europe as a whole aim for a 30 percent reduction by 2025.

France is already attempting to cut its CO₂ emissions by 75 percent by the year 2050 by implementing a carbon tax.

Developing countries

Nearly all the improvements proposed by developing countries (and China) is tied to money.

South Africa said it would slow the growth of its emissions to 34 percent below the current annual growth rate by 2020 and to 42 percent by 2025, as long as international aid is forthcoming.

Despite investing in prototype nuclear reactors, South Africa is currently relying heavily on coal-fired power plants to generate electricity and demand continues to exceeds supply.

A similar situation exists with India's growing population and energy demand. India is offering—assuming it can tap into a climate change fund—to improve its energy efficiency by 20 or 25 percent better than 2005 levels. The Indian government also proposed a new climate research center last week to look at climate impacts specific to India.

There are two developing countries that have offered actual cuts (for a fee): Brazil and Mexico. Brazil is offering 36 to 39 percent below 1994 levels by 2020. Mexico is offering 50 percent by 2050.

End game

On average these promises on emissions reductions or efficiencies fall well short of meeting the targets required to stabilized the temperature rise.

Developed countries average out between 8 to 14 percent reduction below 1990 levels by 2020. In reality, cuts of 25 to 40 percent by 2020, and more than 80-95 percent by 2050 is required. For developing countries a dramatic cut in emission rise is needed.

There is another week to go before the international negotiations in Copenhagen conclude, but as the pre-conference pledges clearly show, it is likely that further emission cuts on top of those already proposed will be announced, or the meeting will be cast as a failure.

Paul Guinnessy

Updated 12/11/2009 with "Anatomy of a public relations disaster."

Fallout from the release by hackers of a series of emails by climate scientists has continued this week while negotiations to try and reduce greenhouse gas emissions continue in Copenhagen. For earlier coverage see Jones steps down as head of climate unit and climate data allegations to be investigated.

Anatomy of a public relations disaster

Fred Pearce, a UK science writer says that the way that climate scientists have handled the fallout from the leaking of hacked e-mails is a case study in how not to respond to a crisis.

Pearce adds that it also points to the need for climate researchers to operate with greater transparency and to provide more open access to data. In the short term he ends his column with the following:

...I have been speaking to a PR operator for one of the world's leading environmental organizations. Most unusually, he didn't want to be quoted. But his message is clear. The facts of the [hacked] e-mails barely matter any more. It has always been hard to persuade the public that invisible gases could somehow warm the planet, and that they had to make sacrifices to prevent that from happening. It seemed, on the verge of Copenhagen, as if that might be about to be achieved.

But he says all that ended on Nov. 20. "The e-mails represented a seminal moment in the climate debate of the last five years, and it was a moment that broke decisively against us. I think the [Climatic Research Unit (CRU)] leak is nothing less than catastrophic."

UK Parliament asks for answers

Phil Willis, the chairman of the UK's House of Commons science and technology committee, has written to Edward Acton, the vice-chancellor of the University of East Anglia, requesting a "comprehensive note" setting out what had happened with the hacked climate email servers and what steps have been taken to investigate the allegations.

Willis also asks how the CRU can "justify its commitment to academic transparency" and how the university proposes to restore confidence in the research.

A Skeptical Media?

Ian Plimer's uncritical coverage in the hacked emails row is frustrating says Bob Ward in the Guardian:

One of the many frustrations for climate change researchers arising from the current hacked climate emails saga has been the way that so-called skeptics have been given so much uncritical coverage by journalists who are not properly scrutinizing their misleading and inaccurate claims...

Take Ian Plimer, who helped the UK Independence party last week to launch its declaration of climate change denial and is a member of the academic advisory board of Lord Nigel Lawson's new lobby group, the Global Warming Policy Foundation.

Plimer is gaining lots of new publicity as an "expert sceptic" says Ward, but the... "trouble is that Plimer is not a climate researcher and has not published any scientific papers on the change in climate that we have been witnessing over the past century. He is an Australian mining geologist who gained fame in his native country for publicly tackling creationists over their denial of the evidence for evolution...."

Al Gore's interview

Former Vice President Al Gore was interviewed in Slate.com. A number of the questions turned to the hacked emails. Here's one of Gore's responses.

Q: What's your view on the medieval warm period and the charge that the East Anglia e-mails suggest data was manipulated to "contain" that anomaly?

A: I haven't read those e-mails in detail, but the larger point is that there are cyclical changes in the climate and they are fairly well-understood, and all of them are included in the scientific consensus. When you look at what has happened over the last few decades the natural fluctuations point in the opposite direction of what has actually occurred. When they run the models and plug in the man-made pollution, the correspondence is exact. Beyond that, the scale of natural fluctuations has now been far exceeded by the impact of man-made global warming.

And again, we're putting 90 million tons of it into the air today and we'll put a little more of that up there tomorrow. The physical relationship between CO2 molecules and the atmosphere and the trapping of heat is as well-established as gravity, for God's sakes. It's not some mystery. One hundred and fifty years ago this year, John Tyndall discovered CO2 traps heat, and that was the same year the first oil well was drilled in Pennsylvania. The oil industry has outpaced the building of a public consensus of the implications of climate science.

But the basic facts are incontrovertible. What do they think happens when we put 90 million tons up there every day? Is there some magic wand they can wave on it and presto!--physics is overturned and carbon dioxide doesn't trap heat anymore? And when we see all these things happening on the Earth itself, what in the hell do they think is causing it? The scientists have long held that the evidence in their considered word is "unequivocal," which has been endorsed by every national academy of science in every major country in the entire world.

If the people that believed the moon landing was staged on a movie lot had access to unlimited money from large carbon polluters or some other special interest who wanted to confuse people into thinking that the moon landing didn't take place, I'm sure we'd have a robust debate about it right now.

Statement from the UK science community

The criticism over the emails has led to the following statement issued and signed by more than 1700 scientists (the full list of signees is available on the extended page).

We, members of the UK science community, have the utmost confidence in the observational evidence for global warming and the scientific basis for concluding that it is due primarily to human activities. The evidence and the science are deep and extensive. They come from decades of painstaking and meticulous research, by many thousands of scientists across the world who adhere to the highest levels of professional integrity. That research has been subject to peer review and publication, providing traceability of the evidence and support for the scientific method. The science of climate change draws on fundamental research from an increasing number of disciplines, many of which are represented here. As professional scientists, from students to senior professors, we uphold the findings of the IPCC Fourth Assessment Report, which concludes that "Warming of the climate system is unequivocal" and that "Most of the observed increase in global average temperatures since the mid-20th century is very likely due to the observed increase in anthropogenic greenhouse gas concentrations".

The future of the AUS$200 million Australian Synchrotron (AS), looks uncertain after it's director, Robert Lamb, was fired last month, and six of the nine science advisory committee members resigned yesterday. More resignations are expected to follow.

After hearing of Lamb's firing, the AS staff went on a "work-to-rule" protest in which they would only provide services 9:00am–5:00pm only says Science magazine's Elizabeth Finkel. The facility is designed to run on a 24-hour cycle.

Lamb issued a statement last week:

I have not been informed in detail or really at all of the reasons for the ending of my secondment to the Australian Synchrotron 5 weeks ago. I don't know why this would of occurred. It is personally distressing but I am very concerned about the smooth operation of our Australian Synchrotron. We were running at 1% below budget in the past year, have raised in conjunction with the science community almost $55 million in 2009 alone and are successfully meeting the research needs of both the national and international science community. I am at a loss and until I am enlightened I am unable to usefully comment further. I appreciate the support of the scientific community and the overwhelming support of other groups that have contacted me. Most recently I accepted an invitation from the Asian Synchrotron Science community to be their guest at the annual Asia Synchrotron meeting held in Shanghai this past week. I know the University of Melbourne has demanded an explanation from the Board but it is several weeks overdue.

The synchrotron's Science Advisory Committee (SAC) met with board director and lawyer Catherine Walter yesterday, and six SAC members followed through on their threats to resign unless Walter herself leaves.

All the Australian SAC members, Frank Larkins, chairman of the advisory committee; Peter Lay of the University of Sydney; and Jenny Martin of the University of Queensland were among those who resigned.

Earlier this week, a synchrotron researcher who asked to remain anonymous reported to Nature's Stephen Pincock, "If the [SAC] committee resigns, no eminent scientist from around the world is going to touch the Australian Synchrotron with a bargepole."

Paul Guinnessy

When it comes to funding basic research at the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), program officers seem to rely mostly on their own opinion reports Science. An analysis of the agency's $1 billion science and technology directorate has found that only about 40% of the $175 million spent on basic science was awarded through a competitive process. And only a portion of that slice is subject to outside peer review.

Physics Today: Rajendra Pachauri, the director general of the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), said in an interview with BBC Radio 4's The Report program that the IPCC will investigate allegations of data manipulation brought to light by the release of e-mails from a hacked server at the Climatic Research Unit at the University of East Anglia.

"We will certainly go into the whole lot and then we will take a position on it," he said. "We certainly don't want to brush anything under the carpet. This is a serious issue and we will look into it in detail."

Pachauri told the Guardian last week there was "virtually no possibility" of a few scientists biasing the advice given to governments by the IPCC.

"The processes in the IPCC are so robust, so inclusive, that even if an author or two has a particular bias it is completely unlikely that bias will find its way into the IPCC report," he said.

Andrew Watson, from the University of East Anglia's School of Environmental Sciences, says that "despite the best efforts of the skeptics, there is no instance in these e-mails that anyone has found so far—and there are millions of people looking—that suggests the scientists manipulated their fundamental data."

The next stage of international negotiations regarding a new greenhouse-gas emission treaty starts in Copenhagen on Monday and there is concern that the accusations by climate skeptics may derail progress in developing a new treaty.

The UK's climate change secretary Ed Miliband said: "We need maximum transparency including about all the data, but it's also very, very important to say one chain of emails, potentially misrepresented, does not undo the global science. The science is very clear about climate change and people should be in no doubt about that. There will be people that want to use this to try and undermine the science and we're not going to let them."

Paul Guinnessy

Related Links
Gordon Brown attacks 'flat-earth' climate change skeptics The Guardian
Climate science, from Bali to Copenhagen BBC

Donald L. Cook has been nominated by the Obama administration to be the deputy administrator for defense programs at the US Department of Energy's National Nuclear Security Administration.

Cook was the managing director of the Atomic Weapons Establishment (AWE) in the UK from 2006 to 2009.  AWE manages all aspects of the UK nuclear weapons program, including decommissioning, dismantlement, and disposal. 

Before that Cook worked at Sandia National Laboratories for 28 years in Pulsed Power Sciences, Microtechnologies, Infrastructure, and Security.  From 1999 to 2006, he was director of the MESA Program Center, accountable for design and construction of the Microsystems and Engineering Sciences Applications (MESA) complex. 

In 2003, he assumed program director responsibilities for Sandia’s Infrastructure Program and for Sandia’s Safeguards and Security Technologies Program, which responded to a new Design Basis Threat. 

From 1977 to 1999, Cook led efforts in pulsed power accelerator design and experimentation, fusion research, hydrodynamics, radiography, diagnostic development, and computational code development. 

He managed the Sandia Inertial Confinement Fusion program from 1984-1993 and was director of Pulsed Power Sciences from 1993 to 1999. 

Cook is a graduate of the University of Michigan and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and afFellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and the UK-based Institute of Physics.

Paul Guinnessy

The Obama administration's push to solve the nation's energy problems is spurring a once-in-a-generation shift in US science away from pure research and toward applied science reports the Wall Street Journal's Gautam Naik.

In fiscal 2009, the Obama administration increased the funding by 18%, to $4.76 billion, to the Department of Energy's Office of Science, which oversees 10 national labs and funds research at another seven. The office will receive $1.6 billion in government stimulus spending, as well, much of which it will also channel to these laboratories.

The Office of Science estimates its bigger budget allowed it to create nearly 1400 research jobs at the 10 labs it oversees in the fiscal year ending in September.

It estimates it created another 1400 science jobs at universities.

In addition, it says, funds from the Obama administration's stimulus package created hundreds more government lab jobs.

Oak Ridge National Laboratory plans to increase its staff by 25%, or 800 positions, over the next 18 months—even as its neighbor, the University of Tennessee, has lost state funding and pared back faculty searches.

The question remains of course, is this new funding sustainable? And what happens when it runs out?

Updated 12/2/2009: Phil Jones, the director of the University of East Anglia's Climatic Research Unit (CRU)—that was hacked into a couple of weeks ago and had private correspondences of researchers published on the internet—announced that he is to step aside as CRU head until an internal investigation is completed.

In a statement on the university's web site, Jones said:

"What is most important is that CRU continues its world leading research with as little interruption and diversion as possible. After a good deal of consideration I have decided that the best way to achieve this is by stepping aside from the director's role during the course of the independent review and am grateful to the university for agreeing to this. The review process will have my full support."

Vice-Chancellor Edward Acton said:

"I have accepted Jones's offer to stand aside during this period. It is an important step to ensure that CRU can continue to operate normally and the independent review can conduct its work into the allegations.

"We will announce details of the Independent Review, including its terms of reference, timescale and the chair, within days. I am delighted that Peter Liss, FRS, CBE, will become acting director."

Controversy over the e-mails have been brewing for days in the run up to the UN Copenhagen negotiations over a new climate treaty, with climate deniers and skeptics using the e-mails to argue that the science shows that climate change is not occurring. They also argue that climate researchers are not making available their data to the public.

Specifically the claims are:

Peer Review

The claims that the e-mails indicate an attempt to use the peer review process to discredit skeptics refers to comments made by Penn State University climate scientist Michael Mann who says in one e-mail "I think we have to stop considering Climate Research as a legitimate peer-reviewed journal. Perhaps we should encourage our colleagues in the climate research community to no longer submit to, or cite papers in, this journal."

Mann is referring to the impact a controversial paper by Willie Soon and Sallie Baliunas that was published in Climate Research on historic temperature trends had on the climate debate. The paper—which the Bush administration tried to use to justify editing a Environmental Protection Agency report so that it no longer acknowledged the scientific community's consensus about climate change—was widely criticized for inaccuracy and led to the resignation of several editors at the journal.

The topic came up at a hearing of the House of Representatives Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming today. Ranking minority member James Sensenbrenner (R–WI) criticized US president science adviser John Holdren for writing in a 2003 e-mail that Soon and Baliunas were "amateurs" at interpreting climate data and said that their findings are "flawed," and asked how could Holdren be objective on this topic.

Holdren said his view was developed by careful analysis, and his only "bias" was that he had read the Soon and Baliunas paper and found its findings wanting.

Rep. John Sullivan (R–OK) asked Holdren if he thought that improper "manipulation" of science would warrant a Congressional investigation. Holdren said that it would be better for the scientific community to use peer review and its existing process to investigate the legitimacy of facts.

E-mail Fallout

"The publication of a selection of the e-mails and data stolen from the CRU has led to some questioning of the climate science research published by CRU and others," says Trevor Davies, the University's Pro-Vice-Chancellor. "There is nothing in the stolen material which indicates that peer-reviewed publications by CRU, and others, on the nature of global warming and related climate change are not of the highest-quality of scientific investigation and interpretation."

"CRU's peer-reviewed publications are consistent with, and have contributed to, the overwhelming scientific consensus that the climate is being strongly influenced by human activity," he adds.

Jones also issued a statement stating that, "My colleagues and I accept that some of the published e-mails do not read well. I regret any upset or confusion caused as a result. Some were clearly written in the heat of the moment, others use colloquialisms frequently used between close colleagues... We are, and have always been, scrupulous in ensuring that our science publications are robust and honest."

Other researchers who have commented on the e-mails at places such as http://wwww.realclimate.org point out that the most damaging e-mails have been taken out of context or use language that can be misinterpreted by readers outside of the field.

For example, one e-mail refers to using a "trick" and "hiding the decline" in a paper that added recent instrumental data to the end of temperature reconstructions that included tree ring measurements.

Says Jones, "One of the three temperature reconstructions was based entirely on a particular set of tree-ring data that shows a strong correlation with temperature from the 19th century through to the mid-20th century, but does not show a realistic trend of temperature after 1960. This is well known and is called the 'decline' or 'divergence'. The use of the term 'hiding the decline' was in an e-mail written in haste. CRU has not sought to hide the decline. Indeed, CRU has published a number of articles that both illustrate, and discuss the implications of, this recent tree-ring decline."

"The 'decline' in this set of tree-ring data should not be taken to mean that there is any problem with the instrumental temperature data. As for the tree-ring decline, various manifestations of this phenomenon have been discussed by numerous authors, and its implications are clearly signposted in Chapter 6 of the IPCC AR4 report."

Keith Seitter, executive director of the American Meteorological Society said that the society had been dealing with queries regarding the CRU e-mails, and whether it would impact the AMS statement on climate change.

Seitter said that the statement was drawn up on "robust" peer-reviewed literature and "followed a rigorous procedure that included drafting and review by experts in the field, comments by the membership, and careful review by the AMS Council prior to approval as a statement of the Society."

Publicly available

The CRU has stated that over 95% of the CRU climate data set concerning land surface temperatures has been accessible to climate researchers, skeptics and the public for several years.

"It is well known within the scientific community and particularly those who are skeptical of climate change that the raw station data has been accessible through the Global Historical Climatology Network," says Davies.

The remaining data requires CRU's partners from around the globe to release CRU from non-publication agreements before it can be made public.

"CRU's full data will be published in the interests of research transparency when we have the necessary agreements. It is worth reiterating that our conclusions correlate well to those of other scientists based on the separate data sets held by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS)," says Davies.

Unhappy scientists

Climate scientists have faced a long campaign both in the UK and the US against the conclusions of their research that the Earth is getting warmer.

The publication of a selection of stolen e-mails "is the latest example of a sustained and, in some instances, a vexatious campaign" says Davies, designed to distract government officials from reasoned debate to develop the international agreements required to mitigate, and adapt to, climate change.

Oklahoma Senator James Inhofe, who does not believe man-made climate change is occurring, is already trying to get the e-mails and scientists investigated by US Senate committee on environment and public works.

Jones states, "In the frenzy of the past few days, the most vital issue is being overshadowed: we face enormous challenges ahead if we are to continue to live on this planet."

"That the world is warming is based on a range of sources," he says. "Not only temperature records but other indicators such as sea level rise, glacier retreat and less Arctic sea ice.... The facts speak for themselves; there is no need for anyone to manipulate them."

Paul Guinnessy

Related Links
Climatologists under pressure Nature
Hacker leaks thousands of climate change e-mails NPR
What East Anglia's e-mails really tell us about climate change Popular Mechanics
Leaked e-mail climate smear was a PR disaster for UEA The Guardian
John Holdren's testimony before the House Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming
Hacked e-mail data prompts calls for changes in climate research New York Times