Members of Congress probe climate researchers

Scientists and a Republican member of Congress are protesting other members' attempts to investigate three researchers who have produced climate data that support global warming, arguing the investigation is designed to intimidate scientists who don't generate politically favorable data.

In 1998, Michael Mann of the University of Virginia, Raymond Bradley of the University of Massachusetts, and Malcolm Hughes of the University of Arizona published a paper in Nature showing that temperatures in the Northern Hemisphere rose precipitously in the 20^th century. This, along with an additional report, created the so-called "hockey stick" graph of rising temperatures from global warming. The team's results were among the many included in the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's third assessment report in 2001, which found that the world is, indeed, experiencing global warming. In June 2004, the group published a Corrigendum to their paper.

Last month, Mann, Bradley, and Hughes received a ...