As temperatures reached into the mid-60s last week on a December date by which temperatures usually have descended into the 30s and 40s, more than a few people remarked at how nice it is to have global warming.

It’s become a common response to any unseasonably warm day, and while it’s usually said at least partly as a joke, it’s also an example of the tendency of people to take an isolated example and apply it to something as complicated and unpredictable as global weather patterns.

It seems this was the fear of a number of scientists at the University of East Anglia’s Climate Research Unit, which compiles data used by the United Nations in reports on global warming. E-mails exchanged by researchers there have recently become the center of what’s being referred to as “Climategate.” The e-mails, which became public after a server at the university was hacked, show evidence of efforts by the researchers to keep their raw data from the public and suppress the publication of articles questioning the science behind global warming in an academic journal.

Skeptics of global warming have been trumpeting the “inconvenient truth” of this little scandal as world leaders were preparing to meet in Copenhagen this month to try to come to an agreement on curbing emissions of greenhouse gases, something President Obama has already acknowledged is unlikely. At the same time, cap-and-trade legislation aimed at curbing the emission of greenhouse gases in the United States has yet to be passed in the Senate. Hearings on Climategate could prove to be a distraction that only further stalls action on global warming.

As someone who has long believed the emission of greenhouse gases is leading to global warming, I must say I’ve read the e-mails critics claim are the most damning and it hasn’t shaken my belief, but I do feel betrayed by the intellectual dishonesty of these researchers and their willingness to hide data that should rightfully be released to the public.

Take, for example, the following excerpt from an e-mail, which was posted on the Wall Street Journal Web site:

“The two MMs have been after the CRU station data for years. If they ever hear there is a Freedom of Information Act now in the UK, I think I’ll delete the file rather than send to anyone. Does your similar act in the US force you to respond to enquiries within 20 days? – our [sic] does! The UK works on precedents, so the first request will test it. We also have a data protection act, which I will hide behind,” wrote Phil Jones, director of the University of East Anglia’s Climate Research Unit, to Michael Mann, director of Pennsylvania State University’s Earth Systems Science Center.

The Wall Street Journal identified the “two MMs” as Stephen McIntyre and Ross McKitrick, two Canadians who have been after the raw data behind predictions of climate change in an effort to test the conclusions drawn from it, as they should. Any sound scientific hypothesis should be able to withstand scrutiny.

It’s unfortunate because a mountain of evidence supporting global warming remains. Data compiled independently of the Climate Research Unit confirms warming trends in recent decades. The 1980s and 1990s were some of the warmest decades in at least 400 years and possibly much longer. Artic ice is melting, and Montana’s Glacier National Park, which once had 150 glaciers, now has only 27, according to National Geographic. A record number of coral reefs, which are sensitive to changes in ocean temperature, died off in 1998. These are but a few of the pieces of evidence many scientists point to.

Global warming continues to be a subject of debate, however, because global weather patterns are extremely complex. Temperatures don’t always increase along a straight line, and proving a direct correlation between increases in greenhouse gases and temperatures has proven elusive. Although many scientists agree temperatures are rising, some of them disagree about what’s causing the warm-up, whether it’s the result of greenhouse gases or some other natural cycle in earth’s climate.

Anyone who reads these e-mails, however, will realize the scientists at the Climate Research Unit were not part of some dark conspiracy to trick the world into believing in global warming. Seeking evidence to support their theories, they simply allowed their beliefs to cloud their judgment, and in doing so gave skeptics even more reason to question the data underpinning global warming theories.

That does a disservice not just to other scientists who have devoted their careers to pursuing answers in this debate but to anyone who has dedicated time or energy to convincing others that this is a problem that the world needs to solve.

Brendan Moran is the former executive editor of Current Publishing.