SAN DIEGO — Public trust in science as a whole has suffered from recent attacks on climate research, the head of the senior US scientific body admitted at the weekend. ‘There is evidence that the corrosion in the public attitude to climate science has spread over to other areas of science, said Ralph Cicerone, president of the National Academy of Sciences, citing public opinion surveys in the US and elsewhere. Speaking at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) in San Diego, Prof Cicerone and other research leaders said scientists must work to regain public trust by being more open about their findings. ‘We need to be more transparent and provide more access to our research data, he said. In the ‘climategate scandal at University of East Anglia in the UK, emails showed researchers at the Climatic Research Unit refusing to release data to sceptics who were critical of their conclusions. But access requests need to be reasonable, Prof Cicerone said: ‘Some scientists are receiving requests bordering on harassment. Jerry North, a senior climate change scientist at Texas A&M University, agreed. ‘It seems that vilifying a scientist has become […]