“Serious scientists will tell you over and over again that this was a deeply flawed study that should never have been published,” Mann said. “Scientifically this study was considered not even worthy of a response. But because it was used politically, to justify policy changes in the administration, people in my field felt they had to speak out.”

Harvard professors have also criticized the report.

“My impression is that the critics are right,” said John Holdren, Heinz professor of environmental policy at the Kennedy School of Government. “It’s unfortunate that so much attention is paid to a flawed analysis, but that’s what happens when something happens to support the political climate in Washington.”

Professor Daniel Schrag of the Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences said that he did not think Soon and Baliunas’ approach to finding a global average temperature was as honest as other approaches.

“The bottom line is that this paper is suggesting that the unusually warm weather we’ve been having for the last 100 years is part of natural variability,” he said. “We have observations to show that that’s not the case.”

The Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics’s director was on vacation and could not be reached.

Soon would only discuss the science—not the politics—of the report for this article.

But he did defend his scientific position.

“I don’t want to say any harsh words,” Soon said. “I just say this: the key point is to encourage more research.”