Marco Werman tells of a scandal in Britain's scientific community that is giving climate change skeptics a boost.
MARCO WERMAN: Now, about this Purloined Climate Science emails we mentioned a few minutes ago. Last month more than a decade's worth of correspondence between leading British and U.S. scientists was posted online following a security breach at a U.K. research center. Climate skeptics argued the emails prove climate scientists have been manipulating data about the extent of manmade climate change. Now, the Director of the Center, the Climatic Research Unit, has taken a leave of absence pending an inquiry into those allegations. Other scientists around the world say the charges of data tampering are bogus, and that even if they were true, they wouldn't diminish the overwhelming evidence that humans are causing dangerous climate change. And it seems that that evidence is continue to accumulate today. A new study by more than 100 researchers from eight countries is warning that the loss of ice in West Antarctica will likely lead to massive sea level rise by the end of the century projected at four and a half feet. Such a rise would swamp low lying coastal areas that are home to hundreds of millions of people, and leave several island nations unlivable. More fodder for the negotiators headed to the Global Climate Summit starting Monday in Copenhagen. This is PRI.