By Scott Learn, The Oregonian
November 25, 2009, 8:30AM
A group of climate scientists released "The Copenhagen Diagnosis" on Tuesday, saying that global ice-sheets are melting at an increased rate, Arctic sea ice is disappearing much faster than recently projected, and future sea-level rise is now expected to be much higher than forecast.

Meantime, controversy continues over thousands of e-mails hacked from the Climatic Research Unit of the University of East Anglia. Climate change skeptics say excerpts from the e-mails show climate scientists are trying to dupe the public.

The diagnosis, a year in the making, comes two weeks before United Nations-led climate change talks begin in Copenhagen, Denmark.

The report concludes that global emissions must peak then decline rapidly within the next five to 10 years for the world to have a reasonable chance of avoiding the worst impacts of climate change.

But climate change scientists are under fire themselves thanks to the "climategate" furor over the hacked e-mails.

The New York Times today focused in part on a message from Kevin Trenberth, a climate scientist at the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colo., that includes this sentence: "The fact is that we can't account for the lack of warming at the moment and it is a travesty that we can't."

Trenberth told the Times the quote was part of a longer message intended to highlight shortcomings in scientists' understanding of recent temperature fluctuations.

The Wall Street Journal talked with John Christy, a scientist at the University of Alabama at Huntsville attacked in the emails for asking that an IPCC report include dissenting viewpoints.

"It's disconcerting to realize that legislative actions this nation is preparing to take, and which will cost trillions of dollars, are based upon a view of climate that has not been completely scientifically tested," Christy told the paper.
-- Scott Learn