Misleading climate paper forces journal editor to step down

A misleading climate change paper that was published in the journal Remote Sensing has resulted in the editor of the periodical being forced to step down.

The paper, which attempted to cast doubt on the man-made effects on global air quality and climate change, came under fire from a stream of climatologists.

Commenting on his decision to step down, former editor Dr Wolfgang Wagner said that the paper, which claimed that scientists were conspiring to inflate temperature projections, was problematic and should never have been published.

The paper, as well as being lambasted by climate change and air quality specialists, was ridiculed on various blogging websites.

While admitting he had made a mistake, Dr Wagner was also blamed the researchers behind the paper - Roy Spencer and William Braswell - for failing to properly reference their work.

"The problem is that comparable studies published by other authors have already been refuted ... a fact which was ignored by Spencer and Braswell in their paper and, unfortunately, not picked up by the reviewers," he said.

Recently, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon warned that it is unlikely that man will make significant short-term progress when it comes to tackling climate change.

Posted by Lauren Steadman