Official estimates of how much oil leaked into the Gulf of Mexico during the 2010 Deepwater Horizon disaster turned out to be well below the mark. Now an advocacy group has filed a complaint of misconduct to the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) against the scientist who compiled the estimates, alleging he "lowballed" the numbers after political pressure from the White House, among others.
Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER) alleges that Bill Lehr of NOAA edited his report to stress estimates from a technique called particle image velocimetry, even though three scientists on the team had already concluded that the technique was seriously underestimating the flow.
Their much higher estimates were later confirmed to be roughly correct.
Lehr denies the allegation. "Absolutely nothing was done in any way to change these numbers or fudge any data," he told New Scientist.
If you would like to reuse any content from New Scientist, either in print or online, please contact the syndication department first for permission. New Scientist does not own rights to photos, but there are a variety of licensing options available for use of articles and graphics we own the copyright to.
Have your say
Only subscribers may leave comments on this article. Please log in.
Only personal subscribers may leave comments on this article
Subscribe now to comment.
All comments should respect the New Scientist House Rules. If you think a particular comment breaks these rules then please use the "Report" link in that comment to report it to us.
If you are having a technical problem posting a comment, please contact technical support.
apple event apple event buccaneers buccaneers bernanke bernanke meredith kercher
No comments:
Post a Comment
Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.