The world’s largest general scientific body, the American Association for the Advancement of Science, says it’s getting alarmed by a growing pattern of threats against climate researchers. In a written statement issued on Tuesday, the AAAS said it was seeing a “hostile environment that inhibits the free exchange of scientific findings and ideas and makes it difficult for factual information and scientific analyses to reach policy makers and the public.” The association said the statement, its first on the subject in more than a year, had been prompted by incidents that include a conservative group and the attorney general of Virginia’s seeking documents from a prominent climate scientist formerly at the University of Virginia, as well as personal threats in Australia against climate scientists at the University of New South Wales, the University of Melbourne, and Australian National University, leading some to hire additional security.