A leading climate scientist has challenged a US government report that questions the role of human activity in global warming, saying it misrepresented his research and contains major scientific errors.
Prof Benjamin Santer, an honorary professor at the University of East Anglia (UEA), said the US Department of Energy (DOE) report made "demonstrably incorrect" claims about climate science.
Santer was among the first scientists to identify a clear human "fingerprint" on Earth's climate. His research played a key role in the landmark 1995 report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), which concluded that human activity was having a measurable impact on the global climate.
However, a DOE report released in July 2025 cited Santer's work while arguing the opposite. The report was published on the same day the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) proposed repealing its 2009 "endangerment finding," which gives the agency legal authority to regulate greenhouse gas emissions from vehicles, power plants and other industrial sources.
Earlier this month, the Trump administration moved ahead with revoking the finding, drawing criticism from scientists and environmental groups who warned it could affect public health and weaken efforts to tackle climate change.
In a new study published this week in AGU Advances, Santer joined climate scientists Susan Solomon of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, David Thompson of UEA and Colorado State University, and Qiang Fu of the University of Washington to reaffirm that human activities are the main driver of global warming.
The researchers said the DOE report should not be used to support legal or policy decisions related to climate regulations.
"We view it both important and with precedent to rebut an incorrect scientific claim made in the DOE report," Santer said.
"Setting the record straight in the peer-reviewed literature is particularly important when demonstrably incorrect scientific claims are made in official government reports," he added.
Santer said one of the strongest pieces of evidence for human-caused climate change is the distinct pattern of warming in the lower atmosphere, or troposphere, and cooling in the upper atmosphere, or stratosphere.
He said this pattern has been predicted by climate models for more than 50 years and confirmed through satellite observations.
"The claim to the contrary made in the US DOE review of climate science is factually incorrect," Santer said.
"As our analysis clearly illustrates, the DOE report is not a reliable source of information on the vertical structure of changes in atmospheric temperature, which is a key piece of evidence for human effects on global climate."
The authors also said scientists have raised concerns about other parts of the DOE report, including its treatment of evidence linking climate change to human activity. They noted that the report was cited 16 times in the EPA's proposal last year.
Following a lawsuit alleging the DOE failed to follow required federal advisory procedures, the team that prepared the report was dissolved in early September.
However, the report has neither been withdrawn nor corrected.
"The report is still available on the DOE website and is still being publicly referenced by DOE Secretary Wright as a credible source of information on climate science. It is not," Santer said.
Source: Science Daily