Attacks on climate change research are damaging the public's faith in science

Leading scientists in Britain and America have warned that recent controversies over research into climate change are damaging the public's faith in science. The group – which included Lord Rees, head of the Royal Society and Ralph Cicerone, president of the US National Academy of Sciences – believes the fallout will continue as sceptics keep up their attacks on climate science. Only fundamental changes in the structure of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) would bring an end to the problem and improve public confidence, they said. "There has been a widespread deterioration in the public's attitude to science not only in the US but in many other countries in the past three months," Cicerone told the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) in San Diego. "As to how long it will last, there is no way of knowing. It can only do harm, however." The public's sudden loss of faith in science was reflected in polls and in media commentaries, the group said, and could be traced directly to recent revelations that the last IPCC climate assessment report had exaggerated the rate at which Himalayan glaciers were melting and by the leaking of email exchanges between climate scientists . Oceanographer James McCarthy, the AAAS's president-elect, said that after initial successes in tripping up the IPCC, sceptics will redouble their efforts to highlight other errors.