Climate Skeptics Charged With Science Fraud, Error

"University of Newcastle researchers relied on 'spurious' results in claiming to debunk evidence that global warming is worsening Australia's droughts, a rival team of scientists contends in the latest battle of the climate wars.

The rival team, led by CSIRO climatologist Wenju Cai, fired the salvo in Geophysical Research Letters, the peer-reviewed journal of the powerful American Geophysical Union.

Dr Cai's team was commenting on a paper published in the same journal by a group from the University of Newcastle's school of engineering in late December challenging the results of some of the world's top climate scientists.

The Novocastrians' paper has been used as ammunition by greenhouse sceptics in the climate wars. The battle over the paper turns on a point of junior high school science -- the dependence of daylight hours on latitude -- which the Newcastle team failed to factor into its analysis."

Cheryl Jones reports for the (Murdoch-owned) Australian April 28, 2010.