Climategate

In the past few days a major scandal in climate science has developed. Someone hacked in to the files of the Climatic Research Unit (CRU) based at the University of East Anglia, in England (aka Hadley CRU). The CRU has been a major proponent of anthropogenic global warming and a principal in report preparation for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).

More than 1,000 internal emails and several reports from CRU have been posted on the internet and the blogosphere has gone wild with the implications of the revealed messages. Dr. Phil Jones, head of CRU, confirmed that his organization has been hacked and that the emails are accurate.

The emails reveal a concerted effort on the part of a small group of scientists to manipulate data, suppress dissent, and foil the dissemination of the information by “losing” data and skirting Britain’s Freedom of Information Act. The emails reveal that the contention that there is dangerous human-induced global warming, is not supported by the data, that those supporting that contention knew it, and sought to control the discussion so as to hide the unreliable nature of what they were claiming.

This revelation should be noted by policy makers since it undermines the justification for control of carbon dioxide emissions.

Comment by Dr. Roy Spencer on the incident:

While it is too early to tell just yet, there seems to be considerable … evidence that data have been hidden or destroyed to avoid Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) data requests; data have been manipulated in order to get results that best suit the pro-anthropogenic global warming agenda of the IPCC; e-mails that contain incriminating discussions are being deleted. And, on the bright side, we skeptics seem to be quite a thorn in the side of the IPCC.

In reading these e-mails from the ‘other side’ of the scientific debate I am particularly amazed at the mind set of a few of these scientists. I exchange e-mails with other like-minded (read ‘skeptical’) scientists, as do the IPCC scientists with their peers. But never do I hear of anyone manipulating climate data to achieve a certain end. I must say that I am pleased to see that NCAR scientist Kevin Trenberth admits that it is a “travesty” that no one can explain the lack of global warming in recent years. See: http://tinyurl.com/ylz7ss5 See a follow-up blog: http://tinyurl.com/yzdh8zy

 

You can read some of the news stories here:

London Telegraph: http://tinyurl.com/yhx9juw

Guardian (UK): http://tinyurl.com/yf5c2er

Canada Free Press: http://tinyurl.com/yljzn9h This one names a prominent University of Arizona professor as being involved.

Herald Sun, Australia: http://tinyurl.com/ybka6az

Examiner.com Phoenix: http://tinyurl.com/yd372g2

This article shows several of the emails including one from Phil Jones that says in part how he hid the decline in proxy temperature data and appended other data to produce the infamous “hockey stick” graph.

Here is access to a searchable database of the emails:

http://www.anelegantchaos.org/cru/index.php

Note to readers of RealClimate.org: Many RealClimate bloggers are principals in the scandal.

This is story is still unfolding. The next few weeks should be interesting.