Former National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration scientist Dr. John Bates has gone on record that the organization knowingly released “unverified” global temperature data in violation of rules on scientific integrity which Bates had received a 2014 U.S. Department of Commerce Gold Medal for devising. Dr. Bates told the U.K.’s Daily Mail that a politically sensationalized 2015 NOAA “Karl study” published in the journal Science was blatantly intended to influence policy agendas favored by the Obama administration at the 2015 Paris climate conference.