The ex-head of the research center at the center of the Climate-gate scandal said a very surprising remark over the weekend, admitting in an interview with the BBC that there has been no global warming over the past 15 years.

Dr. Phil Jones is director of the Climatic Research Unit (CRU) at the University of East Anglia (UEA), which has been at the centre of the row over hacked e-mails.

Speaking to BBC's climate reporter on Sunday, Dr. Jones denied the existence of global warming.

In response to the question, do you agree that from 1995 to the present there has been no statistically significant global warming?, Jones said yes, adding that the average increase of 0.12C per year over that time period is quite close to the significance level. Achieving statistical significance in scientific terms is much more likely for longer periods, and much less likely for shorter periods.

Jones goes on to add that the climate has warmed, adding that there's evidence that most of the warming since the 1950s is due to human activity.

The Climate-gate scandal began in November last year after hackers broke into the e-mail server of the CRU and stole 1,079 e-mails and more than 3,800 documents.

Some of the leaked e-mails and files - which were posted on sites like Wikileaks.org and EastAngliaEmails.com - show growing tensions between scientists and skeptics. Others are mundane announcements of upcoming conferences or research trips.

For more on this story, see the BBC.

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