Academics reject allegations of manipulating climate data

The academics were cross-examined on Monday in connection with the e-mails stolen from the server of University of East Anglia's climate research unit and its leakage on the Internet last year.

The episode led to sceptics of global warming allege that climate scientists were conspiring to overstate the extent to which the earth was warming and making up the phenomenon entirely.

However, Phil Jones, a former researcher at University of East Anglia's Climate Research Unit, has admitted of withholding some scientific data about global temperatures collected from around the world and writing some "awful" e-mails to critics who asked to see his data.

A small number of countries which supplied the information had refused to let his centre publish it, he said. But the researcher insisted that similar data was publicly available from other sources such as NASA.

Jones, who stepped down from his position as the head of the centre after the e-mail scandal broke, admitted that he was wrong to refuse requests from critics to share his data.

"I've obviously written some really awful e-mails. I fully admit that," he said. Edward Acton, the University's Vice-Chancellor, argued that the e-mails did not undermine the science of global warming.

"There's absolutely nothing hidden. It's so overly endorsed by scientists, I'm puzzled we should be working on a savouring of doubt when in fact there is no doubt," he told the lawmakers.