Trove of New Climategate Emails Released

Soon after it was debunked, Climategate is back—on the eve of new UN talks seeking a global deal on climate change. A hacker has unveiled a new batch of some 5,000 emails from the same trove of University of East Anglia files initially hacked, the Washington Post reports. The newly-released emails—whose authenticity hasn’t been confirmed—don’t contain new material on climate research itself, but they give an inside look at scientists battling climate skepticism.

UEA says it hasn’t found “evidence of a recent breach of our systems,” but notes that the release “appears to be a carefully-timed attempt to reignite controversy” ahead of the UN talks. Scientists shrug off the new release. When the emails were written, “no one was thinking, ‘What if these get stolen and get taken out of context—how will they sound?’” notes a scientist who was quoted in the communication. An astronomer at Discover calls it "more ado about nothing." But a Republican congressman says the emails warrant an investigation. (More Climategate stories.)