'More emails' appear online in 'climategate' row

Thousands more emails from the university at the centre of the “climategate” row over global warming science two years ago appear to have been posted online today.

Hacked emails from the University of East Anglia’s Climatic Research Unit (CRU) in England were leaked online in 2009 before crunch UN talks in Copenhagen, which aimed - but ultimately failed – to secure a strong new global deal on tackling climate change.

Climate change sceptics claimed the emails showed scientists manipulating data to support a theory of man-made global warming, but a series of reviews later cleared researchers at the unit of any scientific impropriety.

However, the university was criticised for its failure to be sufficiently open and respond properly to freedom of information requests on its climate data.

The apparent new release of 5,000 emails from UEA comes in the run-up to the latest round of UN climate talks in Durban, South Africa, where it is hoped progress can be made towards agreeing a new deal to tackle emissions and maintaining the existing Kyoto climate treaty.

The release appears to show emails from a number of people including Professor Phil Jones, of CRU, and Professor Michael Mann of Penn State University in the US.