| By Louise Gray, Environment Correspondent Published: 3:12PM GMT 22 Mar 2010 Lord Oxburgh, former non-executive chairman of Shell, will head up a team of leading scientists looking at claims fossil fuels cause global temperatures to rise. Other controversial names on the panel include Prof Kerry Emanuel, professor of meteorology at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology where the infamous "hockey stick" graph was first created. He is best known for a paper that suggested hurricanes are getting fiercer with global warming, immediately causing sceptics on the internet to start questioning the appointment. The new inquiry will look into the mountains of research by the University of East Anglia's Climatic Research Unit (CRU). The university is the leading institution for climate change research and has influenced government policy around the world. But the theft of thousands of emails cast doubt on the science in a scandal known as 'climategate'. Sceptics claim that the emails show scientists were wiling to manipulate the data to show global warming. Already there are various ongoing inquiries into the behaviour of the scientists involved and legal implications. But Lord Oxburgh is leading the first inquiry to look at the science being discussed in the emails. "The shadow hanging over climate change and science more generally at present makes it a matter of urgency that we get on with this assessment," he said. "We will undertake this work and report as soon as possible." Lord Oxburgh trained as a geologist and has been chief scientific adviser for the Ministry of Defence and Rector of Imperial College and chairman of the Lords Select Committee on Science and Technology. His past working in the fossil fuels industry will make environmentalists cautious, but he has also shown an interest in the environment and is currently president of the Carbon Capture and Storage Association and Falck Renewables. Prof Kerry Emanuel has commented on climategate before and is from the university at the centre of a contested graph on the link between global warming and greenhouse gases known as the "hockey stick". One of the ongoing inquiries about climategate has already been criticised for employing scientists who were felt to have already made up their minds in favour of man made global warming and sceptics immediately questioned the appointment on blogs. However Professor Trevor Davies, UEA pro-vice chancellor for research, insisted the panel would be independent. "Given the concerns about climate research ... we decided to augment ongoing reviews with an independent assessment of CRU's key publication in the areas which have been most subject to comment." The other members of the panel are: Prof Huw Davies, professor of atmospheric dynamics at ETH, Zurich and member of the Natural Environment Research Council Prof Lisa Graumlich, director of the school of natural resources and the environment at the University of Arizona Prof David Hand, professor of statistics at the department of mathematics at Imperial College Prof Herbert Huppert, professor of theoretical geophysics at the University of Cambridge Prof Michael Kelly, professor of technology at the University of Cambridge and former chief scientific adviser to the Department of Communities and Local Government |