University of Virginia hands over climate scientist’s documents

Science : Six months after the initial request by a politician and a conservative environmental policy research group, the University of Virginia has turned over documents related to scientist Michael Mann’s climate change research. The documents had been requested in January, under Virginia’s Freedom of Information Act, by Robert Marshall, a Republican member of the Virginia House of Delegates, and the American Tradition Institute (ATI). Alleging that the university was deliberately delaying the process, they later filed suit in May. Mann, a physicist and climatologist now at the Pennsylvania State University, was an assistant professor at the University of Virginia from 1999 to 2005. Mann’s paleoclimatological studies have been criticized by global-warming skeptics who deny that Earth’s climate is changing because of human activity. The documents released so far represent only about a third of what was requested, according to Paul Chesser, ATI’s executive director.