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Scientists Fault Climate Exhibit Changes
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Samper said in the interview that the changes he was recommending were meant to reflect the current debate about the findings of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.
[an error occurred while processing this directive]On Oct. 25, 2005, a few days after the e-mail exchange, the "final script" was changed. The Post obtained printouts of a Microsoft Word document of the script that had tracked the changes, including deletions and additions. The document includes the date changes were made but does not indicate who made them.
Before Samper's review, the exhibit's introduction panel stated, "Over the past 50 years, the average temperatures across the Arctic have risen by nearly twice as much as the global average." After Samper asked for changes, the entrance panel read, "The Earth's climate is changing -- and it always has."
On the fourth panel of the exhibit, this phrase was deleted: "If you want to see what the rest of the planet is going to see in the next generation, watch out for the Arctic in the next five to 10 years." That sentence was replaced with, "A warming Arctic may spur dramatic changes at the top of our planet."
In November, NOAA climate researcher Kathleen Crane wrote an e-mail to a NOAA colleague explaining that the Smithsonian requested "another-final review" of the text because of "the debate within the administration and the science community over the existence and cause of global warming."
The double-checking offended Abdalati, a scientist who studies high-latitude glaciers and ice sheets using satellite and airborne instruments. The manager of NASA's Cryospheric Sciences Program at the time, Abdalati has been on nine field expeditions to the Greenland ice sheet and the Canadian Arctic.
"I also had the feeling that at the highest level, there was some fear that we irresponsible program managers were putting out alarming information, that needed to be checked by our superiors," Abdalati said in the e-mail.
"I never felt that as a scientist, I was pressured to change any of the input," he noted. "The real question is what happened at the highest level after that input came in. That I don't know."
In an interview Wednesday night, Abdalati said he thought the pressure came from "the highest levels of the Smithsonian to avoid a political backlash."
