While the press had largely satisfied itself that the internal whitewash of the Hadley CRU climategate  email scandal settles the matter, the U.S. Department of Energy seems to be saying, "Not so fast."

The American government has suspended its funding of the University of East Anglia's climate research unit (CRU), citing the scientific doubts raised by last November's leak of hundreds of stolen emails.

The US Department of Energy (DoE) was one of the unit's main sources of funding for its work assembling a database of global temperatures.

It has supported the CRU financially since 1990 and gives the unit about £131,000 ($200,000 USD) a year on a rolling three-year contract.

This should have been renewed automatically in April, but the department has suspended all payments since May pending a scientific peer review of the unit's work.