Fight Back Blog: Post From Ben Santer

03.09.2010 Posted By: Brian Young

Ben Santer, a climate scientist at Lawrence Livermore labs, has been at the center of the efforts to understand our climate for years. He worked on the second IPCC assessment in 1996, and he continues to work hard every day to help us understand what's happening to our planet's climate.

And he's borne a burden from the attacks on scientists for most of that time.

He's written a number of open letters to the climate community pushing attention to these issues, and his latest from a couple weeks ago can be found at RealClimate.org.

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A recent story by Fred Pearce in the February 9th online edition of the Guardian (“Victory for openness as IPCC climate scientist opens up lab doors”) covers some of the more publicized aspects of the last 14 years of my scientific career. I am glad that Mr. Pearce’s account illuminates some of the non-scientific difficulties I have faced. However, his account also repeats unfounded allegations that I engaged in dubious professional conduct. In a number of instances, Mr Pearce provides links to these allegations, but does not provide a balanced account of the rebuttals to them. Nor does he give links to locations where these rebuttals can be found. I am taking this opportunity to correct Mr. Pearce’s omissions, to reply to the key allegations, and to supply links to more detailed responses.

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As they say, read the whole thing. It's a great example of what these scientists go through.