Climate scientists accuse US energy department of twisting their work in new report

31 Jul 2025, 21:38 by AFP, https://www.thejournal.ie/author/afp/ · TheJournal.ie

CLIMATE SCIENTISTS WHOSE research has been cited in a report by the US Department of Energy have said their work was misused by the report in its efforts to try to downplay the role of human activity in global warming.

The document outlines the Trump administration’s rationale for revoking a foundational scientific ruling had underpinned the government’s authority to combat climate change.

The report contains inaccurate citations, flawed analysis and editorial errors throughout.

It was written by a working group including John Christy and Judith Curry, who have both in the past been linked to The Heartland Institute, an advocacy group that frequently refutes the scientific consensus on climate change.

It “completely misrepresents my work,” said Benjamin Santer, atmospheric scientist and honorary professor in the School of Environmental Sciences at the University of East Anglia in the UK.

Santer said a section of the report on “stratospheric cooling” contradicted his findings while citing his research on climate “fingerprinting,” a scientific method that seeks to separate human and natural climate change, as evidence for its analysis.

“I am concerned that a government agency has published a report, which is intended to inform the public and guide policy, without undergoing a rigorous peer‑review process, while misinterpreting many studies that have been peer‑reviewed,” Bor-Ting Jong, an assistant professor at the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam in the Netherlands, told AFP.

Jong said the paper made false statements about the climate model her team examined and used different terminology that led to a flawed analysis of her findings.

On Bluesky, the budding social media platform favored by academics, other researchers in atmospheric and extreme weather fields also deplored that the DoE document cherry-picked data and omitted or plainly distorted their academic findings.

James Rae, a climate researcher at the University of St Andrews in Scotland, who said his work is also misrepresented in the report, told AFP the shift in how the department uses scientific research “is really chilling.”

“DoE was at the forefront of science for decades. Whereas this report reads like an undergraduate exercise in misrepresenting climate science,” he said.

This is not the first time since Donald Trump took office in January that scientists have said a government agency has misrepresented academic work to defend its policies.