This week, after eight scientific groups argued that demanding NOAA researchers’ emails could discourage other government scientists from studying anything politically controversial, Mr. Smith told NOAA he would first seek the communications of the agency’s nonscientific staff. He did not, however, rule out the possibility of requesting scientists’ emails in the future.

Attacks on climate science are nothing new — Republicans in Congress have been trying to cut funding for climate research for years. What’s especially disturbing about this attack is that it appears based on a fundamental misunderstanding of how science operates: The re-examination of previous conclusions, which Mr. Smith casts as nefarious, is merely an example of the scientific method at work.

NOAA says there is no truth to the allegations that the study’s conclusions were politically influenced, or that the paper was rushed, noting that it was subjected to strict peer review before publication. The decision of when to publish the paper rested with Science, not with NOAA.

The authors of the paper have made their data publicly available. If Mr. Smith or anyone else wishes to critique the quality of their science, they do not need a subpoena to do so.

The congressman’s focus on a single study threatens to obscure a larger issue: The overwhelming majority of scientific evidence shows that the world climate is changing because of human activity. The rate of temperature change may fluctuate — and even if future analysis shows that warming did slow between 1998 and 2012, this would not change the fact that temperatures have been rising steadily for the last century. Last year was the warmest year on record, and 2015 is likely to be warmer still.