Climate science email controversy headed for Capitol Hill airing

A House hearing Wednesday will likely provide a forum for debating what widely-circulated emails among climate scientists do or don’t reveal about the state of global warming research.

The Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming hearing on climate science will feature two top administration officials: White House Office of Science and Technology Policy Director John Holdren, and Jane Lubchenco, who heads the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

Look for Chairman Ed Markey (D-Mass.), who co-sponsored the sweeping House climate bill that passed in June, to solicit testimony about the strength of research showing dangerous warming trends.

The committee will “explore with climate scientists from the Obama administration the urgent, consensus view on our planetary problem: that global warming is real, and the science indicates that it is getting worse,” the hearing notice this afternoon states.

But also look for Republicans to ask about emails among climate scientists that were hacked from the Climatic Research Unit at the University of East Anglia in the U.K.

Climate change skeptics say the messages show an effort to squelch findings that undercut the case that global warming is occurring. The scientists and their supporters, however, say they have been intentionally taken out of context.