The Island of Doubt

Much is being made by those who really, really believe that there’s a global conspiracy among climatologists of the emails and other documents stolen from the University of East Anglia’s Climatic Research Unit. According to such bloggers, thousands of “embarrassing” pieces of correspondence between some of the leading climate researchers in the world now lay bare the scheme to mislead humanity about the nature of climate change.

I downloaded the 62 MB file and took a quick look at a random selection of what are mostly dull little missives bereft of the context required to understand them in any meaningful way. Just as you’d expect from bits and piece of correspondence never intended for public consumption. Next.

One email, however, from Phil Jones, has been singled out by the usual suspects because it appears to suggest someone’s trying to pull the wool over our eyes: “I’ve just completed Mike’s Nature trick of adding in the real temps to each series for the last 20 years (ie from 1981 onwards) and from 1961 for Keith’s to hide the decline.” But again, you’d have to be part of the conversation to properly interpret it. Fortunately, the Real Climate gang are, and have been, part of the loop, and they explain it thus:

The paper in question is the Mann, Bradley and Hughes (1998) Nature paper on the original multiproxy temperature reconstruction, and the ‘trick’ is just to plot the instrumental records along with reconstruction so that the context of the recent warming is clear. Scientists often use the term “trick” to refer to a “a good way to deal with a problem”, rather than something that is “secret”, and so there is nothing problematic in this at all. As for the ‘decline’, it is well known that Keith Briffa’s maximum latewood tree ring density proxy diverges from the temperature records after 1960 (this is more commonly known as the “divergence problem”-see e.g. the recent discussion in this paper) and has been discussed in the literature since Briffa et al in Nature in 1998 (Nature, 391, 678-682). Those authors have always recommend not using the post 1960 part of their reconstruction, and so while ‘hiding’ is probably a poor choice of words (since it is ‘hidden’ in plain sight), not using the data in the plot is completely appropriate, as is further research to understand why this happens.

There are some interesting documents in the hacked file. I may use them to bone up on some background when I have the time. But anyone who publishes them without permission from the authors clearly has a problem with their ethical subroutines.

What’s interesting is how rapidly the climate denial blogosphere has latched onto this as proof that the entire climatology community are in on a scheme to defraud the world. And why whoever the hackers are would think that this material was actually all that interesting in the first place. The hacking of the data is a worthwhile story, insofar as IT security goes, but the content is just plain banal. All we learn is that scientists are humans after all.

I’ll let the Real Climate collective sum up the situation

More interesting is what is not contained in the emails. There is no evidence of any worldwide conspiracy, no mention of George Soros nefariously funding climate research, no grand plan to ‘get rid of the MWP’, no admission that global warming is a hoax, no evidence of the falsifying of data, and no ‘marching orders’ from our socialist/communist/vegetarian overlords. The truly paranoid will put this down to the hackers also being in on the plot though.

Instead, there is a peek into how scientists actually interact and the conflicts show that the community is a far cry from the monolith that is sometimes imagined. People working constructively to improve joint publications; scientists who are friendly and agree on many of the big picture issues, disagreeing at times about details and engaging in ‘robust’ discussions; Scientists expressing frustration at the misrepresentation of their work in politicized arenas and complaining when media reports get it wrong; Scientists resenting the time they have to take out of their research to deal with over-hyped nonsense. None of this should be shocking.

Comments

#1 Spinner Man
November 20, 2009

Spin Baby Spin!!

BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAA
#2 fredq
November 20, 2009

thus, the frantic damage control begins.
#3 perpwalk
November 20, 2009

Good luck with that, Mr Hat.
#4 Jake Kyler
November 20, 2009

Damage Control mode is on. There are dozens of emails that actively encourage people to manipulate data, other scientists or both. There are even some that encourage gross violations of the law to get out from under pesky FOIA requests. No matter how much the global warming scam artists will try, this is scarlet letter that they will never be able to run from.
#5 cliamtechangeisascam
November 20, 2009

Scientist often use trick in a good way! Is ‘a good way’ defrauding the masses to line their pockets with funding?

You cannot stop the signal! Even with your idiotic spin, good luck Mr. Ass Hat
#6 Dean
November 20, 2009

dude……this is awesome!
#7 Alec, a.k.a. Daffy Duck
November 20, 2009

Here’s the killer email:

From: Phil Jones
To: “Michael E. Mann”
Subject: IPCC & FOI
Date: Thu May 29 11:04:11 2008
Mike,
Can you delete any emails you may have had with Keith re AR4?
Keith will do likewise. He’s not in at the moment – minor family crisis.
Can you also email Gene and get him to do the same? I don’t have his new email address.
We will be getting Caspar to do likewise.
I see that CA claim they discovered the 1945 problem in the Nature paper!!
Cheers
Phil
Prof. Phil Jones
Climatic Research Unit
http://blogs.news.com.au/heraldsun/andrewbolt/index.php/heraldsun/comments/hadley_hacked#63657

HadleyCRU was require to turnover their IPCC AR4 information, and Phil Jones conspired with others to have emails deleted. People go to prison for that!
#8 dusty
November 20, 2009

Let the spin control begin. Man, this global warming is like a religion. We need to add it to the Coexist sticker before they destroy our way of life.
#9 jeff id
November 20, 2009

Your interpretation of the decline is missing the point just as RC intended. Most of what RC says is true but there is one little hit-you-in-the-head detail.

The decline means the Briffa MXD proxies are not temperature proxies. The data is bogus. So they chop the inconvenient yet most important part off and paste on a hockey stick.

The decline is the proof that this data is not temperature and it is covered up or hidden by Jones as was done by Briffa and Mann. They do know of this problem- very well in fact– but that doesn’t make the chopping and replacement of inconvenient data good. Instead it’s proof of Jone’s foreknowlege of the problem when confronted in a recent interview.

In that interview, Jones was disingenuous claiming he did not know of the issue cause it was 10 years old. Yet RC points out here as I did before them EVERY paleoclimatologist knows of this issue.

My link is here:
http://noconsensus.wordpress.com/2009/11/20/busted-2/
#10 The Fat Lady
November 20, 2009

Wow James. You skimmed 4000 documents in a couple hours and instantaneously declared there is no scandal. We’re all reall surprised at your conclusion. Nice try.

Time for me to sing and you to admit full los of credibility and find some other fake bullshit line of work.

FAIL!
#11 Art
November 20, 2009

LOL.

And the denialist dance with glee … over nothing. All appearances and no substance. Typical.

Shrug.
#12 tony
November 20, 2009

Nice job at getting attention. But reading through 62 megabytes of text would take more than an afternoon, dingus. I don’t think this one is going to go away. So keep on spinnin.
#13 Lyle
November 20, 2009

art….the jig is up!

qick,jump off!
#14 madderinheck
November 20, 2009

Your attempt to minimize the damage is probably not going to work this time. More of the MSM is beginning to catch on.

There is damning evidence in those e-mails that you will find now that you have allowed yourself culpable deniability. (In fact there is even an email on culpable deniability.)
#15 Dave
November 20, 2009

Quote: “Let the spin control begin. Man, this global warming is like a religion. We need to add it to the Coexist sticker before they destroy our way of life.”

Dusty, this comment is priceless!! Perhaps the sticker can be COEXIST! – only the added exclamation point would be a thermometer reading 100F! Ha ha ha!
#16 IJI
November 20, 2009

Hank Roberts said,

The no doubt third hand info I saw said the hackers claimed to be presenting a random selection (whatever _that_ means) from the total — not the whole thing.

One could wonder what “random” “selection” means. The press reports seem to claim that everything taken was published.

Someone could, I guess, do something like take all the email timestamps and see if they look anything like a random sample out of the time span covered.

One might wonder if explanations could have been removed leaving only the worst looking stuff.
#17 IJI
November 20, 2009

(oops, the rest should be quoted)
#18 turbobloke
November 20, 2009

Why was this data released in such a way? As it is we’re never going to know if the e-mails are genuine or not, simply because someone could, if they wanted to, modify the original files so that they look different from the hacked files. If, however, instead of releasing the files the hacker had got the authorities to seize the original files, there would not have been any way to modify them. Hence there would be no doubt about their authenticity.

FWIW, my opinion is that this is a last ditch attempt to muddy the waters before Copenhagen.
#19 Bwahaha
November 20, 2009

With all due respect, this is a huge scandal. Not because of the ‘trick’ comment that can be explained away easily, but because of the tens (if not hundreds) of other questionable e-mails contained in the download.
#20 electrostatic
November 20, 2009

lol @ turbobloke

“If officials decided not to release this information, than it should have been kept secret”…

It’s already been admitted that these are genuine. Pointing out that researchers intentionally lied and destroyed contradictory data is not “muddying” the waters. It is telling the truth. If governments have refused to act against these fraudsters it is not the fault of the poeple who leaked the information.

This is why a free press is essential for an open society. Michael Mann and Phil Jones committed INTENTIONAL FRAUD, and the email posted above by Alec PROVES IT. Anyone with half a sense of integrity would be glad that this was released BEFORE Copenhagen instead of after.

None of this, however, changes the Science behind the data: CO2 can not hold a candle to H2O vapor as a greenhouse gas. Never could, and never will. That, and the fact that we would be in a warming period right now REGARDLESS of human activity is very clearly shown by the same ice cores that AGW supporters refer to as showing their side to be trye.

All in all, it is a scam. Always has been, always will be. It will be interseting to see what the next 40 or so MB of data reveal.
#21 Goober
November 20, 2009

Where did all the denialists come from? Did something happen to their bridge?
#22 Spartan
November 20, 2009

Did your dog write this article?
#23 Chris Salmon
November 20, 2009

James,

What is wrong with you? I’m wondering if you’re even reading the same stuff I am reading – I also downloaded the entire file and I’m just SHOCKED at the behavior in them.

This is a truly sad day for Science, the behavior of these criminals reflects poorly on all of us who are scientists (I’m a geologist) and will further feed an anti-scientific meme in the current zeitgeist.

Criminals, I say? How can I say that?

They are destroying data that is subject to a FOIA request. That is a crime.

They are “smurfing” by trying to move monies in less than $10,000 increments to avoid taxes. That is also a crime.

It’s right there in black and white. These people have given all scientists a black eye. Stand up for what is right and truthful about our professions – and it ain’t what these guys are doing !!
#24 john b
November 20, 2009

well, sit on your little Isla of Doubt. I’m sure you are safe.
#25 JGlenn
November 20, 2009

Unfortunately, it looks like this stuff is going to cost Mann (et al) dearly. Unless something drastic comes out, the information on handling the FOI requests is going to cause a good amount of fallout.

*Most* of the rest of the emails sound like researchers collaborating and crafting the message of their paper in an environment in which the slightest crack in your argument will be jumped upon.

Even if climateaudit’s evaluation of “the Nature Trick” is true, it doesn’t mean there is a vast global conspiracy – just some bad science as a result of a politicized environment.
#26 Art
November 20, 2009

It remains to be seen if any of the claims haves any facts behind it. Yes, there are a lot of allegations and claims but the vast majority of claims of what, if anything, this amounts to is coming from the same people who have been repeatedly shown to be lying, manufacturing fake studies, and collecting millions in payoff from the oil and coal industries.

If a liar tells me someone else is lying should I take their word for it? Can they be trusted to spot and identify falsehood when they have such a history of manufacturing it? I think not. They lost their seat at the table years ago when they were clearly, obviously caught lying and yet continued to use the same arguments. As far as anyone can tell no argument from their side has ever been abandoned even after it has been shown, repeatedly and in detail, to be a lie.

Of course the fact of AGW is not based on a handful of scientists or any number of e-mails. It is based on the life’s work of tens of thousands of climate scientists, literal mountains of data, and hundreds of cross-verified records of climate that go back thousands of years.

The actions of any subset of scientists and all the denialists efforts combined doesn’t change any of it. You can’t change reality by denying it.

Of course this is still a whole lot about nothing and will remain that until someone who hasn’t completely discredited themselves, like the sock puppets posting multiple times under several different names, says otherwise.

The truth will likely take thirty days to come out even show up. And ninety days to be confirmed. Reality is like that.
#27 Ed
November 20, 2009

Art, where did you get the figure of “tens of thousands of climate scientists”?

I doubt anyone has a count of all climate scientists in the world but a closer estimate might come from the 2007 IPCC report which had 154 lead authors and about 450 contributing authors. Since some were both lead and contributing authors, that over counts a bit.

It would seem odd that there could be “tens of thousands of climate scientists” but that most therefore had no contribution to the IPCC effort, the largest climate science initiative in the world.
#28 Elf
November 20, 2009

For what it’s worth, the NY Times article on this contacted a at least a few of people directly involved in the emails, and everything checked out.

Obviously doesn’t guarantee the entire package is authentic, but I haven’t heard any specific claims of fakery.

The entire episode will simply provide more proof that belief systems determine how we interpret new facts. For the vast majority of people, this will simply be interpreted to fit into your existing beliefs…
#29 WAG
November 20, 2009

I’m gonna pull out my Glenn Beck hat and ask why, just hours before this story broke, Jim Inhofe said on the Senate floor that he’d be “vindicated,” and that 2009 was the “Year of the skeptics.” (I grew up in Inhofe’s home state, so I’m allowed to).

http://akwag.blogspot.com/ 2009/ 11/ is-jim-inhofe-behind-hacking-into.html

Timing sounds a little suspicious, no? Why was he so confident he would be vindicated? Not saying Inhofe was involved – I just ask questions!
#30 Art
November 20, 2009

Tell you what Ed.

Prove there aren’t that many “climate scientists”.

That ought to keep you off the streets, and the population safe, for a few hours.
#31 Chuck
November 20, 2009

And where would you be financially without the “Global Warming” scam James. Sorry – you don’t qualify as a reliable source..

Let’s go one on one with research discussion and results James. I distribute my work to everyone, embracing questions and challenges and there’s a reason that I do that… because I want my work to be “Right”. I never start with an end result and then work towards proving that result – that’s simply BAD science. Einstein proved that multiple times.

You forgot to mention your BS in the Science of Rhetoric
#32 WAG
November 20, 2009

Chuck -
The reason it’s tough for climate scientists to make all their work public is that, because it’s such a complex subject, it’s easy for people to misinterpret it. It’s sort of a catch-22. Make everything available, and those with a vested interest in the status quo will misinterpret it to deceive the lay public. Take efforts to ensure it doesn’t get misinterpreted, and you’re accused of “playing politics.”
#33 Climate Change
November 20, 2009

I just found this blog throw a google search. It’s very sad that this “so called” freelance science journalist”, James Hrynyshyn, does exactly, in this incredible post, the opposite of good journalism. It’s not necessary to be “that smart” to see that there’s a huge story in this leaked information, it it confirms to be legitimate. Since middle 90′s that the climate science entered into “dark ages” of knowledge, where’s science is artificially “settled” and those that find breaches in it or claim for evidence are ridicularized, such as this journalist apprentice does. You sure have a lot to learn about science… and a lot to do about your inner integrity.
#34 Jim
November 20, 2009

Well then, Mr. Climate Change, since you have decided to make such an attack on the blogger’s integrity, would you care to point out – specifically – where he is guilty of bad journalism?

You make some scathing comments, be ready to back them up.
#35 Nils Ross
November 20, 2009

There are a lot of AGW denialists in the thread claiming incriminating material without providing links or even quotes. Perhaps they should, as the phrase goes, put up or shut up? James has dealt with one such quote in his blog article, and your response has been to suggest that there are others without being specific. Taking such an action, then immediately accusing James of ‘spin’ is reprehensible.

Show us the money, so to speak. Links and quotes, please, so we can have a serious discussion.
#36 Brett
November 20, 2009

Show us the money, so to speak. Links and quotes, please, so we can have a serious discussion.

I doubt they will, or if they do, it will be simply to other websites that say the exact same things without proof.

It’s a testament to the genius of the strategy done by groups such as the American Petroleum and America Enterprise Institute, back when both were funded by Exxon and the like. They deliberately tried to tap into a paranoid streak in American politics and society, and portrayed the scientists as a bunch of eggheads, or worse, Communists! trying to steal their money and force them to live a certain way. The blogosphere only allows the hordes of ignorant, self-righteous, paranoid freaks to spout their nonsense every which way, exacerbating the situation.
#37 Nils Ross
November 21, 2009

So I’ve just read through the quotes that Andrew Bolt thinks are incriminating in any way. Aside from the one about deleting emails, which, as James said, is entirely without context, there’s nothing remotely resembling conspiracy. Bolt has highlighted passages regarding interpretation or processing of data that he considers questionable. Again, he provides no criticism through links to published papers and scientific criticisms on these grounds. He similar lets his readers assume the (fallacious) conclusion that data processing = deliberate distortion of data.

And, I presume, this is the best of what Bolt can come up with. Seriously? James was right if this is it — nothing to see here.
#38 Fran Barlow
November 21, 2009

Thanks James … well said.

As always, the enemies of mitigation prefer to make the issue anything but the science underpinning the explanation of the current climate anomaly.

Nothing in these emails casts doubt on that.

Every adequate proxy says the planet is warming. This can only occur at this speed if insolation at the surface is increasing. As satellite-based spectral analysis shows, outgoing longwave radiation is decreasing in the bandwidths absorbed by CO2, CH4 and other GHGs. And we know these gases are anthropogenic in origin. QED.

The emails don’t change that.
#39 Surely
November 21, 2009

@Jim:

The author’s conclusion: “The hacking of the data is a worthwhile story, insofar as IT security goes, but the content is just plain banal. All we learn is that scientists are humans after all.”

The content includes written evidence of suggesting the deliberate destroying of data preceding requests under compliance of the Freedom of Information Act, an outright crime, and logically an indication of chicanery on the part of these “scientists”. To paint this anecdote as banal, and to arrive at the conclusion that “scientists are humans after all”, is downright disingenuous. To glance over this point calls into the question the integrity – and objectivity – of the author. Hence, bad journalism.
#40 dhogaza
November 21, 2009

I distribute my work to everyone, embracing questions and challenges and there’s a reason that I do that… because I want my work to be “Right”.

Really? I’ve never received your work. Am I not part of the set of “everyone”?
#41 Nils Ross
November 21, 2009

@Surely, your quote: “The content includes written evidence of suggesting the deliberate destroying of data preceding requests under compliance of the Freedom of Information Act, an outright crime, and logically an indication of chicanery on the part of these “scientists”.”

Actually, the quote is entirely without context. It’s not clear why email deletion is being discussed, or what the result was. Perhaps calling it ‘banal’ was too far on James’ part. But it’s unimpressive, to say the least.
#42 Hank Roberts
November 21, 2009

Ya know, this is the material for a handful of sociology papers. Or maybe we’re talking Blog Epidemiology here.

Take a defined chunk of text — albeit “randomly selected” if the claims attributed to the putative original hackers are true.

Put it online briefly as they did.

It gets copied, chunked up, excerpted (has anyone seen the original? Calculated a checksum or otherwise put a key on it to make sure it’s not being altered?)

Now it spreads. Above we see some of the stuff turned into copypaste points already, being repeated by people (or someone’s socks) multiple times just here. And many other places.

Run a methodical search for all the strings quoted from it and track their spread.

Watch for the context that gets dropped.

Fairly quickly this could be developed into something like the SkepticalScience site — call it SkepticalBlogScience — tracking each of the popular copypaste quotes and listing the context that’s being ignored by the repeaters.

Yeh, it’s a tangent to the BlogSquabble. But as a pure study in how information about a highly emotional subject moves in the new medium, it’s a wonderful opportunity for research.
#43 Chris Salmon
November 21, 2009

I don’t know why everyone who wants direct quotes can’t just download the whole file and look it themselves, but ok, you want actual quotes, here’s one clearly showing illegal activity.

From file: 826209667.txt

From: “Tatiana M. Dedkova” To: K.Briffa

“Also, it is important for us if you can transfer the ADVANCE money on the personal accounts which we gave you earlier and the sum for one occasion transfer (for example, during one day) will not be more than 10,000 USD. Only in this case we can avoid big taxes and use money for our work as much as possible.”

I don’t know about elsewhere but in the USA this is called – a felony. Structured transactions, less than the reporting requirement amounts, designed to hide the movement of money from tax authorities. AKA, “smurfing” –

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smurfing_(crime)
#44 Ed
November 21, 2009

Art,

I accept your explanation (or lack thereof) and will assume then that most of the “tens of thousands of climate scientists” are choosing not to participate in the IPCC process. Perhaps you could offer, then, an explanation as to why in excess of 95% of your population of climate scientists is not participating in the IPCC process?

Thank you
#45 Surely
November 21, 2009

@Nils Ross:

Very true. But in the context of the author’s response to this “scandal”, that being these e-mails purport to “mislead humanity about the nature of climate change”, it is very apt to call them “banal”, as it is for you to consider them “unimpressive”.

Is this not the very essence of a straw man argument?
#46 Justin
November 21, 2009

I find it hilarious that someone talks of “ethical subroutines” when these scientists are committing fraud, destroying e-mails, cheering at the death of opponents, etc.

Laughable, actually.
#47 Nils Ross
November 21, 2009

Surely, I’m not sure if you missed a crucial conjunction in your last response. Would you clarify your position? You said “it is very apt…”; did you mean “it is NOT very apt…”?
#48 Chris Salmon
November 21, 2009

Here’s another quote, you can look it up yourself – I’m not quite believing, that you can say it’s merely “banal” for a scientist to say a thing such as this:

from file: 1107454306.txt

At 09:41 AM 2/2/2005, Phil Jones wrote:

“The two MMs have been after the CRU station data for years. If they ever hear there is a Freedom of Information Act now in the UK, I think I’ll delete the file rather than send to anyone.”

So here we have a “scientist” talking about DESTROYING IMPORTANT SCIENTIFIC DATA rather than letting another person analyze it. This is data that is important to the whole world! And this .. person … would rather destroy it than see someone test it against a competing hypothesis!?!

That’s “banal” ?? It’s no big deal ??

ARE YOU KIDDING ME ?? What kind of scientist even considers, even jokingly, destroying vital data that is being used in world-changing political decisions? Don’t these people feel any responsibility at all to science?
#49 Surely
November 21, 2009

@Nils Ross:

I am insinuating that the context is a straw man, so any e-mails that don’t reveal a global conspiracy would be appropriately deemed banal. Suffice to say, this makes it easy to ignore the severity of everything else revealed, and again, bad journalism.
#50 Damo
November 21, 2009

Phil should have a long time in prison trying to remember why he, Caspar, Keith and the other ‘Good Ole Boys’ were deleting AR4, and the court case should help clear up the mess around Mike’s trick (was it successful? – let’s wait and see). Fun and games!!
#51 Nils Ross
November 21, 2009

@Surely.

I can’t agree that context is a straw man. Especially, if you’ll forgive me, in the context of this discussion. Chris Salmon’s behaviour is indicative to the way context is currently being approached. When I asked for quotes, I didn’t mean disconnected, apparently incriminating throw-away quotes, but the incriminating quote as well as the supporting discussion. Without the extended discussion — the context — the meaning of the email isn’t apparent. Text isn’t an efficient vehicle for communicating meaning except when in context. If we’re going to play detective, then we should play detective properly.

I wouldn’t have used the term ‘banal’, and I won’t defend it. But I can see where James is coming from in posting this defense. There may be ‘evidence’ (inverted commas indicating the dubious legality of such) of illegal activity (see above comments about context, however). Linking this to AGW theory being somehow compromised is fallacious unless someone can prove or provide evidence for a direct link between the two.
#52 Chris Salmon
November 21, 2009

@nils – Nils, it’s not really upon me to provide you with the discussion surrounding the quotes I provided. The entire file is publicly available, just grab the darn thing.
If one is to claim that these quotes are somehow taken out of context, and don’t ‘really’ mean exactly what they say, then I would say it is upon that person to show how the surrounding discussion makes these quotes somehow legitimate in context.
Further I, personally, have never said in this discussion that I wish to link the quotes I provided to any discrediting of the AGW hypothesis (I do not believe it has attained the status of “theory” as of yet).
What I am saying, is that the behavior exemplified in the files is not “banal” and is incredibly unscientific and casts all scientists in a bad light.
For instance, these guys were dead-set on tainting the peer-review process, eliminating all dissent, and quashing anyone who might challenge their hypotheses. We’re all supposed to be after the truth, opening our ideas to attack from all comers, and welcoming the chance to let the strongest hypotheses survive.
This is not the case at the Climate Research Unit. They’re not practicing that kind of open, truth seeking science. And that’s a shame and a scandal. It’s offensive to me, as someone with scientific training, to see our ideals tarnished in this way.
Download the whole file, look for yourself, if you want a copy I have one on a server, I just don’t want it getting hammered with a ton of traffic. It’s out there if you want to look.
#53 Nils Ross
November 21, 2009

Sorry Chris, that won’t fly. Russel’s Teapot. If you’re going to make an extra-ordinary claim, then you need to provide extra-ordinary evidence. This is part of the scientific process that you profess to defend. Isolated quotes aren’t sufficient to qualify as ‘extra-ordinary evidence.

That said, I’m NOT making the claim that the individuals involved haven’t been unscrupulous. I’ll make the allowance that we’re not of us angels, and allow the relevant law enforcement agencies to do their jobs if laws have been broken. That’s not my concern, and it shouldn’t be our collective concern. It’s not the original point of James’ post either. Our collective concern is a discussion of how this ‘scandal’ does or does not relate to AGW. Let the lawyers sort out the rest.
#54 Bill
November 21, 2009

One thing these “scientists” constantly tell us is that they cant release their data because sceptics would misrepresent it. Well in America there are millions of people who dont believe in evolution either and a well funded and organised opposition, (currently called “intelligent design”). Does that mean paleontologists wont release their data – of course not.

Some climatologists just hide their data and duck FOI requests for as long as they can get away with it. Why? – Because certain key parts of their work have involved ridiculous cherry picking, or blatantly inappropriate statistical methods. If they are cornered and forced to release, it takes Steve McIntyre less than a days work to prove that. Just ask Keith Briffa.
This is what you get when you mix science with political power – fraud, institutional thuggery and even downright criminality.
Those of you who just believe anything Mann, Hansen, Jones etc say are just sheep
#55 Chris Salmon
November 21, 2009

@nils – Nils, honestly, I gave you the filenames from which the quotes were taken. These and the immediately surrounding files contain the context. This is a short message format comments board, I didn’t feel pasting an entire file in here was a good idea.
You wanted quotes, I gave you quotes, as you said: “There are a lot of AGW denialists in the thread claiming incriminating material without providing links or even quotes. Perhaps they should, as the phrase goes, put up or shut up? ” and I gave you filenames to the original source of the quote. You can download the zipped file yourself and look it up.
Personally, I think YOU are the one claiming something extraordinary, as you are claiming that there could be such a thing as a “good” context for “send the money to my private account no more than 10,000 at a time to avoid taxes” – what possible context could make that come out as “OK” ? Or “I think I’ll delete the file” containing CRU station data, “rather than send to anyone.” There is no context that will make that good, Nils. If there is, you have access to the same data I do, show us.
I think you’ll agree, that destroying data so it cannot be analyzed by a competing researcher or team is totally against everything that scientists are trained to do, regardless of context. Have we arrived at a point, where we cannot say this is just WRONG ?!?! That’s what it is, just plain wrong. Furthermore that’s not his data to destroy or do what he wants with, the public paid for that data. I don’t know UK law at all but I imagine destroying government property is not generally smiled upon.
Regardless of context.
#56 Ed Snack
November 21, 2009

Ah yes, the old “these aren’t the emails you’re looking for” trick. Pity you can’t tell the truth yourself. As has been pointed out, the “trick” email is damning. Those graphs using proxies show a distinct downturn after 1960, no matter how you pad or treat the end points; that is no matter how you pad or treat the end points HONESTLY. So, without saying so in the paper or any explanatory material, you pad the end points with the instrumental record. You then categorically deny that no one has ever grafted the instrumental record onto the proxies. Of course using the proxies to pad the end points is not “grafting” in the fantasy world that these people live in.

Then there’s the criminal conspiracy that’s revealed, to deliberately evade FOI requests.
I suppose you even like to think that Mann et al 2008 doesn’t use proxies in the reverse of their correct orientation despite the author of those proxies specifically stating that they are reversed. That’s why Mann’s emails like to crow that MM get everything wrong, because he lives in an echo chamber with people who’s critical (and ethical) facilities have been burned out, who won’t point out the M&M have almost always been right.

That’s what strikes me about the emails, so many of the authors seem utterly unaware of how unethically and unscientifically they’re acting; and how ignorant they are of common scientific procedure.

This whole process could have been avoided iof the scientists at the centre of this had followed normal scientific practices such as releasing their methods and data, and if they’d been honest about the uncertainties, and left the preaching to the cultists instread of becoming cultists themselves. But then certain of those figure would not have gained the prominence they now enjoy, because once you expose the fraudulent means they used to get they’re “results”, those results don’t stand up.

Sunlight, an excellent disinfectant, I recommend it to you.
#57 Nils Ross
November 21, 2009

@Chris Salmon.

Let’s be honest. Trawling through these emails is a lot of work. I don’t want to do it. You obviously don’t want to do it. But you’re the one making accusations. The burden of doing all that work is on you, or your position comes to nothing. I’m not making a claim, so I don’t need to support one.

And to re-iterate. I have no involvement with the scientists involved, and couldn’t care less if they’re dodging taxes or violating FOI orders. I don’t care if they sent a deluge of emails to each congratulating each other on defrauding every nation on the planet out of research money. It’s not relevant to the discussion; it’s a point for law enforcement, not for a blog ostensibly directed towards discussion of the politics/science interface of AGW. IF law enforcement finds after due process that FOI laws have been violated, and IF that violation can be seen to have been committed to protect falsified data, then that’s an issue for this blog. Until then, it’s hysteria.
#58 Surely
November 21, 2009

@Nils Ross:

I didn’t try to implicate these e-mails to any sort of comprise of AGW, though that’s the road this invariably leads down (again I’m not implying, but merely recognizing why this issue is so contentious). It’s dubious for anyone to immediately proclaim scientific fraud here, but it does not help the credibility of a science journalist to argue something like this post; that because the e-mails didn’t confirm the convictions of conspiracy theorists, this is not a scandal.

RealClimate.org had a relatively much better defense, focusing on the ethics of the issue – though again I view this as sidestepping, and would much prefer for advocates to admit that these e-mails portray how scientists should not behave, and concede that this is serious. After all, if the science is there, why should there be any sort of poorly defended responses, such as this post?

That is the sort of question that is raised by these purely nonobjective reactions – rhetoric even – and leads to suspicion to an outsider such as myself, regardless of how innocuous this whole thing turns out to be (I found this website through google news in an attempt to hear both sides of the story). This suspicion was inevitably raised based on this news, but it is only being exacerbated, instead of ameliorated.
#59 Marion Delgado
November 21, 2009

Now you see where the before copenhagen money comes out – it gets poured into ramping up the propaganda, but remember, the same authoritarians even wiretapped their fellow Senators in the United States.

And don’t expect the sociopaths, who are flooding every science blog that brings it up with talking points, to ever feel they’re part of doing anything wrong.

This has really reaffirmed the Bob altemeyer model of sociopaths, people with high dominance, either or both with high right-wing-authoritarianism, all dominating a large minority of high-right-wing-authoritarians who are follower types, and the complete mess they make of the world.
#60 bi -- IJI
November 21, 2009

Surely:

This suspicion was inevitably raised based on this news, but it is only being exacerbated, instead of ameliorated.

I think you’re the one trying to exacerbate the suspicion in the first place.

You can’t make any concrete accusations against the scientists that actually hold water, so you keep smearing them and insinuating that they’re guilty of making themselves “suspicious”, while at the same time painting yourself as an impartial observer.

Begone, concern troll.

– bi
#61 Surely
November 21, 2009

@bi:

To deny/ignore that these scientists did not behave with integrity, which naturally leads to suspicions being raised, is again exacerbating the situation.

Is it so hard to admit that suggesting to delete e-mails/data open to public perusal, which is illegal, is wrong? Apparently it is if the ones doing the deleting are on your “team”.
#62 Rob H
November 21, 2009

Too bad warmy fakers, the jig is up.
#63 Surely
November 21, 2009

@bi:

And from my limited knowledge on this subject, I came to the conclusion that the facts for harmful AGW are not indisputable, and so sacrificing world economic productivity on a current scientific uncertainty does not make sense to me. Remember, the burden of proof rests on those making the claim, and these claims are still being debated. So, I think my position is a rational one.
#64 Chris Salmon
November 21, 2009

“Let’s be honest. Trawling through these emails is a lot of work. I don’t want to do it. You obviously don’t want to do it. ”

Actually, I do want to “do it” because I’m particularly interested in finding, for myself, the truth about all this. I have the original zip file which I dowloaded from the .ru server earlier today. But for your convenience when examining the email portion of the data, a searchable database is up now:

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

I think we can (hopefully) all agree that we’re interested in finding out the truth of this matter and it’s affect on AGW thought, no matter if the outcome aligns with our personal viewpoints or not. Let’s try not to make the same mistakes these guys are making and be open to what may come from the data.
#65 bi -- IJI
November 21, 2009

Surely:

which naturally leads to suspicions being raised,

So you’re now calling yourself a force of nature who’s just causing “suspicions” to be “naturally” “raised”?

No, Surely. You are the ones raising the “suspicions” by making vague insinuations, while avoiding having to make any concrete accusations of wrongdoing.

Is it so hard to admit that suggesting to delete e-mails/data open to public perusal, which is illegal, is wrong?

What evidence do you have that this happened? Just a single e-mail devoid of context? What other evidence do you have besides your “suspicion”? Or perhaps you can’t call it your “suspicion”, you have to call it a “natural” “suspicion”?

Why don’t you have the courage to make concrete claims and stand behind your claims?

Begone, concern troll.

– bi
#66 Nils Ross
November 21, 2009

@Surely.

Quoting Surely: “That is the sort of question that is raised by these purely nonobjective reactions – rhetoric even – and leads to suspicion to an outsider such as myself, regardless of how innocuous this whole thing turns out to be (I found this website through google news in an attempt to hear both sides of the story). This suspicion was inevitably raised based on this news, but it is only being exacerbated, instead of ameliorated.”

This is a legitimate point, and one that can’t be ignored. However, what is suspect? The majority of AGW denialists (or ‘skeptics’, if you prefer that term) in this thread have jumped immediately on the ‘criminal scientist/AGW fraud’ bandwagon, without even mentioning what specific point of science is in question. Because, as far as I can tell, there isn’t one.

If the fact that scientists are real people who commit financial crimes at a similar rate to other real people is news, then something is up. This is probably the reason for what you’ve called ‘side stepping’: any other response would be trumpeted as admission of guilt, and extended beyond all reason in the blogosphere to be an admission that there were problems with the AGW model. Somehow.

As far as I can tell, James’ article points out that there isn’t sufficient evidence to kick up a fuss about potential illegal activities. I still haven’t seen any quote mining to convince me otherwise: the quotes we’ve had apparently exist in a vacuum of other evidence. I’d hate as a prosecution lawyer to try to make a case based on them alone. Given the presumption of innocence that I think we all believe we’re entitled to, I’m not sure that doing anything other than sitting on that presumption of innocence is appropriate.

Finally, the thought occurs that the furore over these emails might be precisely the reason these scientists don’t want to make their data public in the first place (although I’m not sure I agree with that position). You only have to pick up Heaven and Earth or The Great Global Warming Swindle to see how easy it is to ‘cherry pick’ the other way. I’m more inclined to trust the self-correction of the scientific process than to care whether lay-people have access to the raw data. If data has been falsified, some other scientist will make his bones showing that it was so. If not, not.

PS: Kudos to you for looking for both sides (or all sides) of the story and engaging in cogent, rational debate. I’m enjoying myself immensely.
#67 dave
November 21, 2009

¨Show me the money¨?

Certainly http://spreadsheets.google.com/ccc?key=0Ah4XLQCleuUYdFIxMnhMNnlXb2JQcDZUendjUXpWWUE&hl=en
#68 Chris O'Neill
November 21, 2009

electrostatic (aka noise):

None of this, however, changes the

blog

Science behind the data: CO2 can not hold a candle to H2O vapor as a greenhouse gas.

I wonder why that H2O vapor doesn’t decide it should be ice instead as it would be in a -33 deg C, greenhouse-free world.
#69 Geckko
November 21, 2009

Stop digging mate.

In one train of correspondence Jones writes of destroying data and communications that might be subject to an FOI request.

There is talk of coordinating action to affect the publication of academic research and even the removal of Journal editorial staff.

Are you a friend of science or a friend of certain “climate scientist” (a term that now must be applied loosely.

Choose your ethics carefully now my friend. You will not get you creditability back.
#70 Nils Ross
November 21, 2009

@Dave:

There are any number of organisations out there with far more accessible cash than government organisations to fund research, and whose vested interests dictate that scientists working for them should find evidence against AGW. Instead, these organisations either don’t bother spending that money or employ lobbyists rather than scientists. This should be suggestive to the critical thinker as to where the weight of evidence lies: if there was significant evidence to be found refuting AGW, the money would certainly be there to find it. Instead…
#71 Roger Zimmerman
November 21, 2009

It’s very simple. Real science requires making all of your data and methods available, and _then_ explaining/justifying anything you think may be inaccurate in that data. It does not matter the “political environment” in which that communication happens. If you are concealing any of this, then you are not doing science (you’re doing politics).
#72 bi -- IJI
November 21, 2009

It does not matter the “political environment” in which that communication happens. If you are concealing any of this, then you are not doing science (you’re doing politics).

It’s precisely the “political environment” that’s trumpeting some e-mail devoid of context as “evidence” that they’re concealing something?

– bi
#73 bi -- IJI
November 21, 2009

Chris Salmon,

From where did you find out about the URL to the .ru file in the first place?

– bi
#74 Eamon
November 21, 2009

Of course, a true climate change con would have to include the following in leaked e-mails:

“The fools haven’t even realized that what they understand of the Laws of Thermodynamics and Radiative Transfer are wrong!

They dance to our bidding! Mwa-ha-ha….”
#75 turbobloke
November 21, 2009

Here’s a more complete version of the $10,000 e-mail:

“Dear Keith, March 6, 1996

I and Eugene received your E-mail of 04.03.1996. This day I talked
over the telephone with Eugene and he asked me to send an answer from
both of us.
Thank you for the information concerning proposals to the
INCO/COPERNICUS. We agree with your strategy used and we hope
that this proposal will not be rejected.
The results of INTAS-RFBR proposal will be known at the beginning
of May. We know that they received many proposals and a competition
is high (only 1 in 10 proposals might get money). Of course, you
included in as a participant. Fritz is a coordinator from the INTAS
countries.
This year our laboratory received two small grants (approximately
8,000-10,000 USD per year) from the Russian Foundation of Basic
Researches (RFBR) for the next three years: the first one for
developing the Yamal supra-long chronology and the second one for
developing tree-ring chronologies from living trees growing at the
polar timberline in Siberia (together with Vaganov’s laboratory).
These money are very important for us as they will allow to maintain
the staff of our laboratories.
I and Valery Mazepa were in Krasnoyarsk during one month and
together with E.Vaganov wrote the manuscript of book “Dendroclimatic
Studies in the Ural-Siberian Subarctic”. The problem now is to find
money for its publication. If we find enough money soon (20 million
roubles), the book will be published this autumn. We analysed 61 mean
ring-width and 6 cell chronologies which we intend to publish in form
of tables in the Appendix. We can send to you all raw measurements
which were used for developing these chronologies.
Of course, we are in need of additional money, especially for
collecting wood samples at high latitudes and in remote regions.
The cost of field works in these areas is increased many times
during the last some years. That is why it is important for us
to get money from additional sources, in particular from the ADVANCE
and INTAS ones. Also, it is important for us if you can transfer
the ADVANCE money on the personal accounts which we gave you earlier
and the sum for one occasion transfer (for example, during one day)
will not be more than 10,000 USD. Only in this case we can avoid
big taxes and use money for our work as much as possible. Please,
inform us what kind of documents and financial reports we must
represent you and your administration for these money.
I and Eugene have a possibility to participate in the Cambridge
meeteng in July, but we need extra many and special invitations.
If you do not have enough money to invite both of us, Eugene does
not insist upon this visit.
The best wishes to you and Phil.

Yours sincerely Stepan Shiyatov”

NB:Tax “avoidance” is not illegal, tax “evasion” is.
#76 Marco
November 21, 2009

Geckko: the discussion on removal of Editorial Staff was very much relevant and APPROPRIATE. Chris de Freitas, as Editor, rigged the review process to allow fundamentally flawed papers through (Soon and Baliunas was the (big) final drop in the bucket). If I would see the same in a journal in my field, I’d have a long discussion with any of my colleagues that are on the Editorial Board, telling them to do something about it. I hope any of my fellow colleague-scientists would do the same.
Regarding Phil Jones and destruction of data: please make sure you have the whole context in place. Smearing campaigns are illegal in the UK, too…
#77 Paul
November 21, 2009

Is there any evidence of actual deletion of emails/destruction of evidence; or is it the mere discussion of such actions? There is a big difference.
#78 david elder
November 21, 2009

Mr Hynyshyn, if an anti-AGW think tank receiving so much as a buck and a half from Big Oil got caught with some of this stuff – talking of dumping data to evade FOI requests, or trying to stack journal editorial boards – you are trying to tell me that you, RealClimate, the Hockey Stick Team, Greenpeace and the notoriously climate-alarmist media wouldn’t make an issue of it?
#79 Hank Roberts
November 21, 2009

david elder’s recent post (“journal editorial boards” is a classic example of refusing to read the history to understand what people are talking about.

You can look it up. He could have too, but didn’t.

http://www.historycommons.org/entity.jsp?entity=sallie_baliunas_1

Here ya go kids:

“after the paper is published, three of journal’s editors—including incoming editor-in-chief Hans von Storch—quit in protest. Storch, explaining his resignation, calls the paper “flawed” because “the conclusions are not supported by the evidence presented in the paper.” He adds that he suspects “some of the skeptics had identified Climate Research as a journal where some editors were not as rigorous in the review process as is otherwise common.” [Chronicle of Higher Education, 9/5/2003] Additionally, 13 of the scientists cited in the paper publish a rebuttal saying that Soon and Baliunas seriously misinterpreted their research in the paper. [Ammann et al., 2003 pdf file; American Geophysical Union, 7/7/2003]“
#80 Marco
November 21, 2009

David Elder: much of that would depend on the context. If a journal has an editor that actively rigs the review process, and one can show that to be the case, few people would make a big issue about it. I’d expect REAL skeptics to make a big fuzz about such obvious peer-review rigging, but somehow Chris de Freitas was and is beyond criticism amongst climate ‘skeptics’.
Talking of dumping data is different from actually dumping data. And unless the latter can be proven, there is no talking point either way, and I would expect few people to make a big fuzz. You are merely projecting your own feelings onto everyone else.
Note also that the referred data is the value-added data, which can be easily calculated from the raw data using the published methodology (and vice versa!). Phil Jones has repeatedly uttered frustration that McIntyre apparently wants somebody to hold his hands while he tries to re-interpret the data so he can cry wolf about the person holding his hands. Just look at what he did with Briffa, even though he had the data all along…
#81 Russ
November 21, 2009

Monbiot deals with idiots by leaving their name where their comment was with the note:

“This comment has been removed by a moderator. Replies may also be deleted.”

It has really cleaned things up. His posts were over-commented and finding the wheat for the chaff was not worth it.

Conspiracy theorists have a screw loose. When the condition finally gets a label I just hope it is something easier to spell than schizophrenic.

Anyone who has done any reading of historical science knows that scientists are just people. Scientists cheat, lie, steal, and self-deceive just like everyone else in the world. That is why they developed methods and protocols to control that behavior in the name of science. Before those methods were codified, science made slow progress. The cure for scurvy was lost and found over and over again.

Climate science didn’t get a pass. It is just as constrained as every other field by those methods. The idea that somehow that field has found a way to shrug off the scientific method to foment a giant funding pyramid scheme is …ah, irrational.
#82 Karma
November 21, 2009

As valiant a rearguard effort as the AGW propagandists are performing here and on other blogs, in the end none of this commentary is going to help the “scientists” whose emails were published at all.

They were stupid enough to document how they broke some laws and how they were conspiring to break others. They were funded by various governments whose politicians will happily throw them to the wolves rather than appear incompetent or complicit. They can look forward to being fined, fired, and locked away.

Plus, these guys don’t know what other data and documentation the hacker/whistleblower has but hasn’t yet released, so they still have to worry about more shoes dropping.

They’re screwed and they know it.

I almost – almost! – feel sorry for them.
#83 Chris Salmon
November 21, 2009

bi,

I happened on this story very early. I got the original URL from this site:

http://noconsensus.wordpress.com/2009/11/19/leaked-foia-files-62-mb-of-gold/

I dug the URL out of the wordpress URL that was posted there:

http://go2.wordpress.com/?id=725X1342&site=noconsensus.wordpress.com&url=http://ftp.tomcity.ru/incoming/free/FOI2009.zip

I have the file on one of my internet servers. I just hesitate to publish the URL because I don’t want to pay for a lot of excess traffic coming in for free. But if you go to the URL connected to my name, then on the lower left column it says “Contact” and “email us” you can email me there if you want the file. I have the original, from the .ru server, unmodified.

By the way, I just want to say, I don’t *want* these guys to be as bad as I now think they are. The data just shows they are, indeed, that bad. This whole episode is sad for science, regardless of your position on AGW.
#84 Marco
November 21, 2009

@Karma:
And in 50 years people will be looking for someone to blame for not doing anything. It’ll be the scientists that are blamed for not yelling hard enough that climate change is real, and that humans are the main driver. Those same scientists know it wasn’t them to blame, but people like you and a range of others who WANT to see faults, interpret anything as negative as possible (and frequently provingly wrong), and then cry “wolf” as loud as possible.
#85 Craig Heinke
November 21, 2009

It’s interesting. There is clear proof here of crime; the hacking of a university’s email system and publishing the scientists’ private correspondence without permission. Publishing (carefully selected) chunks of that correspondence does not prove that the scientists committed crimes, and frankly should be ignored considering the illegality of the method of obtaining it (the legal doctrine of “poisoned fruit”).

This reminds me of the ACORN story; where a clear crime was committed (the taping of people without their consent is illegal in Maryland), but somehow that crime was ignored in the public furore. One could easily find all kinds of ugly bits when taping any meeting of lawyers and clients, or by cherry-picking quotes from anyone’s email correspondence.

I am really disgusted by how low the right-wing stoops to try to destroy the reputation of their opponents–apparently the law means nothing to them.
#86 Karma
November 21, 2009

Marco, bravo, bravo.

Clearly, you and the other AGW propagandists are the saviours of mankind. Or rather, you’ll be recognized as such in 50 years when Gaia finally rises up in your fantasy Armageddon scenario to strike down all the unbelievers.

I’m sure that at that point all of us infidels will gnash our teeth and rend our garments and cry out “If only we’d believed in the trickery used to hide the decline!”

In the meantime, the frauds and con artists exposed by this data dump will still be going to jail.
#87 bi -- IJI
November 21, 2009

Craig Heinke:

There is clear proof here of crime; the hacking of a university’s email system and publishing the scientists’ private correspondence without permission. [...]

This reminds me of the ACORN story; where a clear crime was committed [...], but somehow that crime was ignored in the public furore.

It’s clear that the furore in this (CRU) case is entirely manufactured by the extreme right. There is no scandal, no genuine expression of broad-based public outrage. It’s just the right-wing conspiracy theorists and their concern troll sockpuppets that are causing this “furore”.

– bi
#88 pough
November 21, 2009

The decline means the Briffa MXD proxies are not temperature proxies. The data is bogus. So they chop the inconvenient yet most important part off and paste on a hockey stick.

Thank God the thermometer was invented by Steve McIntyre in 2007. From now on, we should be able to get a decent picture of global temperatures without using Russian wood. Just think: all that so-called warming was just an artifact of fraudulently-used commie wood.
#89 Tacroy
November 21, 2009

So wait – when some scientists write a private e-mail to other scientists and say “hey, when you send us the money you’re going to send us, do it like this so we don’t have to pay so much in tax” we’re supposed to go apeshit and completely disregard an entire body of evidence – and apparently sue them in the United States federal court, even though in context it looks like this is a discussion between an Englishman and a Russian?

And when a guy says “I’d rather throw my data away than give it to those assholes”, this is a sign of corruption and bad data and not, for instance, the way a bunch of know-nothings constantly pestering you to give away your hard-earned work so they can twist it to mean something it really doesn’t can infuriate even the calmest of people?
#90 Chris Salmon
November 21, 2009

This is starting to remind me of talking to a bunch of creationists. For some reason, it seem certain “fans” of these guys and of the AGW hypothesis, simply refuse to see what is right in front their eyes. I have no idea why.
Listen, bi, Tacroy, et. al., your heroes here have done you no favors. They are crooks. It doesn’t matter if you deny deny deny defend all day. The data is there in black and white. It’s not trivial, it’s not banal, it’s extremely damaging both to your cause and to science in general.
Obviously certain people have some irrational, emotional attachment to the idea that whatever these climate scientists do is “OK” by them, and those pointing out wrongdoing are some kind of enemy, some “right wing” “corporate” “wingnut” etc., etc.,
Again, I repeat: your “heroes” whom you are defending have done you and your cause no favors whatsoever. In defending this behavior, you further damage your own cause. By denying what is plain-as-day in front of your face, you are weakening the credibility of your cause.
It is, exactly like trying to educate creationists about evolution. You can show them easy to understand evidence, right in front of their own eyes, and they go, “but no, that’s not how it is, it’s like *this*” They simply won’t take their blinders off, and neither will these deniers and apologists for the CRU people.
#91 Chris Salmon
November 21, 2009

OK I can’t resist, even though I know it will do no good, but this is bugging me:
Tacroy said:
“And when a guy says “I’d rather throw my data away than give it to those assholes”, this is a sign of corruption and bad data and not, for instance, the way a bunch of know-nothings constantly pestering you to give away your hard-earned work so they can twist it to mean something it really doesn’t can infuriate even the calmest of people?”

This is not Phil Jones “hard-earned work.: This data is public property, paid for by the public, and it should be in the public domain. He does not have the right to withhold this data, as it is not his. He does not have the right to destroy something that others have paid for, that is, in fact, not even owned by him.

He was being “constantly pestered” due to HIS OWN ACTIONS – because he refused to give up his data, and his methods, and all the other information that was government property and that he refused to give up even though he was legally required to do so. If he had gotten the first FOIA request and merely said, “Oh, OK, no problem,” and merely made the information available to the public online, then he wouldn’t be getting “pestered.”

He has no right to be “infuriated” and someone requesting information that they have a legal right to, that is not his, and that is in the public domain. THIS IS NOT HIS DATA, and it’s not his decision to make as to what he gives out and what he doesn’t give out, don’t you understand that??

The extreme denial of the CRU fanboys, in the face of complete and total proof of malfeasance and anti-scientific behavior at the CRU is pathetic and sad.

Don’t you understand, this is a thing for science? It’s bad for science in general. Your “heroes” at the CRU have set back your cause and public opinion of scientists.

I know you’ll come back, just like a creationist (“but God did it”) (“but nothing shows the CRU people are bad”) and deny deny deny. Go head, it’s sad but at least it’s getting boring hearing it from people who won’t look with their own eyes as to what has happened.
#92 Craig Heinke
November 21, 2009

@Chris Salmon: I don’t think you understand how science is actually done (nor what Phil Jones is referring to; it’s not clear from the email). You seem to think that every single step in the production of science should be publicly available; that as soon as a scientist has an idea or takes a data point they are obligated to put it into the public domain. We need time to work out the details and improve our methods. We don’t have to turn over our data and methods to anyone who requests them at any time. That would make it impossible to carry out serious science investigations. Anyone who suggests differently has no idea how science is done.

Your comparison to creationism is apt, but reversed. The denialists remind me of creationists, with their insistence that huge bodies of well-documented research are all wrong because of whatever scrap of information they can misinterpret that day.
#93 bi -- IJI
November 21, 2009

Chris Salmon:

For some reason, it seem certain “fans” of these guys and of the AGW hypothesis, simply refuse to see what is right in front their eyes. I have no idea why.

So we’re supposed to pretend that Chris Salmon’s verbiage equals the “raw evidence” that’s “right in front” our eyes, just as we’re supposed to pretend that Mr. Surely’s vague insinuations are merely “suspicions” arising from nature.

It’s clear now: the climate inactivists have nothing, they’re trying to manufacture outrage over nothing, and they’re failing miserably.

– bi
#94 MPW
November 21, 2009

Oh, boy. I’ve got a bad feeling about this.

Now, from what I’ve seen so far, there’s very little here that a rational and minimally knowledgeable person could believe casts doubt on decades of work by the entire global climate science community. I’ve seen no convincing evidence that anything illegal, unethical or unscientific was done by these particular scientists (although I’m going to continue following this and can certainly see my mind being changed on that); and even if there were, it does nothing to refute the vast body of work by other scientists or (as Eamon points out at #74) the basic physical principles at work.

However, people who are both rational and knowledgeable on this particular, very complex subject are a tiny minority. Offhand, this looks like the most resounding PR coup by a science-denialist movement I’ve ever seen – this is a gold mine of anti-AGW memes that will pay out for years. I honestly think future historians may look back and mark this as the point where the (political) tide definitively turned and it became (politically) impossible for the U.S. and some other countries to do anything effective about climate change.

I’d love to be proven wrong.

[And P.S., "Preview" doesn't seem to be working.]
#95 Chris Salmon
November 21, 2009

Bi, Craig,

Thank you for beautifully illustrating my point. I knew you wouldn’t let me down.

Keep on that denyin’ and lyin’ train baby. Ride it as long as you can.

The CRU guys are heroes, saving the world. I’m a “denialist” (although I’ve said nothing about AGW here) who “doesn’t know how science is actually done” (although you know nothing about me) and, although I’ve said numerous times that the actual files are publicly available for everyone to see, somehow that’s turned into “Chris Salmon’s verbiage equals the raw evidence.

Hahahahahah hahah seriously, you guys are cracking me up. All praise to Jesus, the CRU, and the AGW religion, for they are without fault and cannot be questioned. Blameless, innocent, and ever perfect, the CRU walks perfection.

Those who dare to suggest that the words of the CRU mean what they say, are blasphemers who shall be smote upon the rocks! Heretics, who don’t understand context !! May you be marooned on an ice flow in the arctic melting you and your kind have caused! Corporate shill! Rightwinger! Denialist! How dare you question the mighty CRU !!?!

hahahahahahhaha can’t you even see your own behavior??

I mean, seriously, you guys aren’t even interested in having a real conversation about any of this, are you? It’s OK, go ahead and be honest. We already know, anyway.
#96 bi -- IJI
November 21, 2009

Those who dare to suggest that the words of the CRU mean what they say,

Or do you mean that the words of the CRU mean what you say they mean?

You know, if you really wanted the evidence to speak for itself, you could’ve simply posted the mails and left it at that.

But you can’t, can you? You have to keep repeating your conspiracy-laden interpretation — that there’s collusion, and fraud, and data hiding, and all sorts of bad things — at every turn, while insisting that ‘the evidence speaks for itself’. Why?

Perhaps it’s because the raw evidence doesn’t actually say what you insist that it says?

* * *

Maybe I’ll show you how “raw evidence” is done. You said,

I’m a “denialist” (although I’ve said nothing about AGW here)

the AGW religion,

Now that’s raw evidence.

– bi
#97 Chris Salmon
November 21, 2009

bi,

Hahahahaha , you’re killing me, man. I haven’t laughed this hard in a while, I appreciate it.

Hahahah keep the faith, brother. Keep the faith, power to you and all praise to Phil Jones, he’s our savior.

Keept it up, you’re proving my point more and more. I love it.8
#98 Mac
November 21, 2009

Global warming has been exposed as the biggest fraud in science. That is the message that comes thru loud and clear to people.

It is also clear now that AGW adherents are only interested in spin, half truths and downright lies.

Who now trusts scientists? No one. They are down in the gutter with politicians and journalists.
#99 Jim
November 21, 2009

This one won’t be going away. The fraud is exposed. I’m sick of that “denier” label too. I’m not denying anything, you are. I highly suggest to all of you other “deniers” out there that if ever one of these cowards says that to your face you break their nose.

They want to play the silencing of opinions game? Fine, just be prepared for a little return fire.
#100 Dr. Dean
November 21, 2009

Tacroy: “And when a guy says “I’d rather throw my data away than give it to those assholes”, this is a sign of corruption and bad data and not, for instance, the way a bunch of know-nothings constantly pestering you to give away your hard-earned work so they can twist it to mean something it really doesn’t can infuriate even the calmest of people?”

You should avoid name calling as it diminshes your case to say the least. Those “know-nothings” as you call them are scientists and others who question the conclusions drawn by the work of some of those at CRU. Many are every bit as qualified to evaluate the data as those at CRU, and possibly even more so.

No scientist with an ounce of integrity (much less common sense) would publish anything unless and until they were absolutely certain to the best of their ability that their data and the processes used to draw conclusions, questions and recommendations from that data can pass rigorous reviews from many quarters. Withholding the data and expecting the world to change based upon one’s conclusions is ludicrous to say the least.

Even if they feel the possible conclusions have such grave ramifications that they need to publish conclusions early, given the gravity of the situation, they still can not justify withholding the data – unless they specify that their conclusions are preliminary. Such is not the case at CRU.

Any scientist who withholds data that he/she presumably used to draw conclusions that the world is headed for certain disaster, and knows that said conclusions are being used by governments and individuals to justify massive social, political and economic change, has the ultimate scientific – and moral – responsibility to publish that data and make it widely available for review and critique.

My laymen opinion: The emails I’ve seen so far from CRU are damning, depicting an rampant lack of respect for the scientific process and a corrupt mindset in general. The methods and practices reflected in these messages are simply unacceptable given the very real potential for truly disastrous negative economic impact on the future of the entire world from their, now very questionable, ‘work’.

Bottom line: The CRU scientists come off as seeming to be working very hard to make it appear that the data support their conclusions.

As an aside, I’m a scientist and it saddens me that these emails will deal a serious, yet seemingly justified, blow to the scientific community with ramifications well outside the scope of climatology. But right now that is the very least of the world’s problems.

Having digested this story for a few days, I can’t shake the very real possibility that the biggest problem facing world today may well be dealing with the massive economic, political and social momentum built up by the apparently faked AGW ‘crisis’.
#101 bi -- IJI
November 21, 2009

Global warming has been exposed as the biggest fraud in science. That is the message that comes thru loud and clear to people.

You mean the message that you’re unsuccessfully trying to blare out to people through your metaphorical megaphone.

Your bogus message isn’t going anywhere, and you know it, and that’s why you have to keep shouting it at every opportunity.

– bi
#102 Galen Haugh
November 21, 2009

Collusion or conspiracy–it matters not. The “scientists” at the Haden CRU have been found wanting in that regard; they should be investigated, fined/jailed, thrown out of their “scientific” professions and required to recant all their lies.

It is that simple folks.

Then all the other climate research centers around the world need to be audited and FOIA applied to everything they’ve done. Immediately!

We the tax payers (and potential victims of their nefarious schemes) deserve no less.

Then Al Gore needs to return his Nobel Prize. In person.
#103 Daniel J. Andrews
November 21, 2009

It seems anyone who thinks the “trick” email is damning doesn’t have much experience in the sciences (or computer programming, for that matter). It is a shortcut, a hack, a clever little item to make things a bit easier. It is not an attempt to deceive.

There are loads of tricks in biology and chemistry. When we use it we all understand the context and meaning of it. It is part of the language we use and we don’t even think twice about it.

Indeed, I had to reread the trick email a few times before I understood what others were thinking it meant. To me, it made perfect sense in the context I just described above. Only after reading someone’s interpretation of it did I realize they thought it meant a deception…and then I just laughed. btw, Nature is a prestigious peer-reviewed journal…feel free to find the article and show us the deception since the ‘trick’ is in the journal.

Chris…you might be taken more seriously if you demonstrated even a slight inkling of how science works or even the basics of climate science. As Craig pointed out, you are like a creationist, a person who doesn’t understand evolution or basic biology, and is ignorant of the vast amount of evidence supporting evolution, and blissfully unaware of the evidence that rejects creationism. Most creationists don’t even know what evolution is, but they’re still against it.

So why do you think that your uninformed opinion on a subject you know nothing about has any weight? You suffer from the Dunning-Kruger effect (there’s a nice youtube video clip, Illusion of Superiority, explaining it if you don’t want to read the article itself).

Here’s a thought. Assume the worst case scenario that all these emails are actually damning in the extreme. Assume that every bit of science in the emails is to be thrown out.

Do all that, and you still haven’t even come close to invalidating the science of global warming. That is how much other evidence there is out there. If you think that global warming rests on a few temperature data sets and models, you are very wrong. If you don’t understand this then you don’t know enough to have an opinion on the subject, and you most likely will be treated just like any other ineducable troll.

Grab a climate textbook and do some reading…it will help if you have some physics background too. Yeah, science takes effort. Most people aren’t interested in making the effort, and would rather just read a few friendly blogs and become an instant “expert” who can then inadvertently embarrass themselves on the web (“I’m doing well here”—see that youtube video if you want to understand the context of that quote).
#104 WestWright
November 21, 2009

The responses here from the AGW Warmist reflects exactly the ethics of these criminal scientist that have lied and tried to destroy the opposing science. I repeat to everyone involved in climate issues, “Choose your ethics carefully now my friend” Creditability once loss is not retrievable!
#105 MPW
November 21, 2009

Just to follow up on my comment at #94 – I did a little Google News search and mainstream papers already seem to be mangling this exactly the way deniers like Galen above want to see. You may not want to go look, it’s really depressing.

The New York Times article is at least sensible and provides full context. Very few people will read beyond the gotcha headlines, though.
#106 Lucas McCarty
November 21, 2009

Earlier this year the BBC did a piss-poor job of reporting on the ‘controversial’ practice of using Polymerase Chain Reaction to retrieve DNA from very tiny samples in criminal investigations.

PCR you see is a clever ‘trick’.

The report oozed science-illiteracy, spin and ignorance. I’m reminded of it in these comments.
#107 Chris Salmon
November 21, 2009

Daniel,

Maybe you should read and study, yourself. Read and study this message thread, before you jump to conclusions about me.

*I* was the one that brought up how the CRU data deniers are acting like creationists, not Craig. Craig only tried to turn that around on me.

You attack me on not knowing the basics of climate science. Yet, I have never discussed climate science on this message board. I have only discussed the CRU emails and the obvious illegal acts and malfeasance evidenced by them. You are attacking me for a lack of knowledge regarding things I’ve haven’t even discussed. Therefore, you have no idea if I have knowledge or not, and you’re just blabbering nonsense that has nothing to do with anything I’ve said here.

You lecture to me that “science takes effort” yet I said previously that I was a geologist.

You haven’t read what I’ve actually said, and you’re arguing against things you *think* I’ve said. You presume to put me in some kind of “denialist” camp, and feel labeling me in this way means you know everything about me, yet you know nothing of my opinions on climate change, as I’ve said nothing about them. It’s like you’re talking to a complete different person than me, although it seems to be addressed to me??
#108 guthrie
November 21, 2009

And yet, the earth warms…
#109 Galen Haugh
November 21, 2009

Hey, “MPW”… I’m a scientist myself. And these are the facts:

If you work for a government entity, YOU DON’T OWN THE DATA… The people you work for (in this case, the taxpayer because he is the ultimate funder), owns the data through FOIA. And those bozos at the Hadley CRU obstructed all the FOIA they could, and now we know why.

Analysis of the information hacked now shows:

1) Minipulation of evidence,

2) Private doubts about whether the world really is heating up (but since that flies in the face of AGW ideology, oh well, lets’s not let anything like introspection ruin our money grubbing grants and deception to the populace)

3)Susppression of evidence (is that ok with you?–that way policies can be enacted that are far-reaching, debilitating to the economy, and basically uncivilized)

4) Fantasies of violence against prominent Climate Skeptic scientists,

5) Attempts to disguise the inconvenient truth of the Medieval Warm Period.

But above all, I am not a denier–It is a fact that the earth has been heating up. But not by an appreciable extent from man (hence you may take the “A” from AGW); indeed it is old man Sol that is causing it, and the past 10 years of flat or falling temperatures support the position that CO2 isn’t the culprit. Because the earch will be cooling down again for another 10 to 20 years, then heating up, then cooling down; it’s how things have gone for millions of years.

But see, that doesn’t fit in the Hayden CRU’s agenda, so they decided to make things up (it’s called factual inexactitudes or lies), suppress any dissent (nothing scientific about that), and in the process they’ve set their careers on fire.

They are criminals.

Pure and simple.

And about your reliance on the New York Times, I have this response: BAAWWAAAHHHAAAHHAAHAHA!

They’re as yellow as journalism gets. And they’re in the tank for AGW. So I suggest that, wanting to look or not, you pull your head out of the sand and see the light (as in sunlight).

But I’ll tell you another thing as a geologist: I’m expecting the next Ice Age; it’s 500 years overdue. And before an Ice Age kicks in, temperatures fluctuate wildly, yet the overall temperature of the earth doesn’t go up or down; it simply is redistributed: Lower latitudes get warmer and higher latitudes get colder. And get this:

There’s nothing man can do to stop it.

It is as predictable as clockwork. It isn’t a matter of “if”; it’s a matter of “when”.

But I certainly wouldn’t count on anybody from the Hadley CRU letting you know about it. Nope.
#110 Galen Haugh
November 21, 2009

Correction:
“Hayden CRU’s agenda” should be “Hadley CRU’s agenda”
#111 Rev. Dr. E. Buzz Miller
November 21, 2009

To the spinners…

You are horrible people, at your core. You know it’s crap, yet you don’t care.

You;d LIKE to see GW blow the world up, in your deranged little way.

Regards.
#112 musubk
November 21, 2009

It is, exactly like trying to educate creationists about evolution. You can show them easy to understand evidence, right in front of their own eyes, and they go, “but no, that’s not how it is, it’s like *this*” They simply won’t take their blinders off, and neither will these deniers and apologists for the CRU people.

Like someone else said, the creationist comparison is accurate but reversed. It’s the creationists who appeal to conspiracy theories, quote mining, and latching onto smearing scientists* and insisting that because they claim a scientist associated with the science has done something untasteful, it somehow invalidates the science.

*In this case, the smearing may well be deserved, as what I’ve seen quoted from the emails certainly sounds shady. But shady in a ‘not revealing everything they should due to dealing with a hostile camp known for sewing confusion as a tactic’, not shady in a ‘the science is faked’ way.
#113 Alex
November 21, 2009

And yet, the earth warms…

Precisely.

I’m interested to know, now that AGW has apparently been exposed as a “fraud”, what the predicted climate is likely to be in 2100 assuming emissions the same as today from now till then, with appropriate error bars.

Well?

Didn’t think so.
#114 Pierce R. Butler
November 21, 2009

Remarkably high heat/light ratio here.

Me, I just wish these fearless and talented hackers had done the same thing with all the White House email illegally processed through, stored on, and erased from Republican Party servers, back in the all heat/no light days of George Dubious, the Denier-in-Chief.

Oh well – obviously the aforesaid hackers had other priorities.
#115 guthrie
November 21, 2009

Wait a minute – Galen Haughs nonsensical screed seems to be suggesting simultaneously that ice ages are predictable, and that we are 500 years overdue one. So just how predictable are they?
#116 Chris Salmon
November 21, 2009

Guthrie,

Galen’s a geologist. If he gets it within 500-1000 years, he’s bulls-eyed it hahahha dead center.
#117 zefal
November 21, 2009

Here’s a good run down so far of their skulduggery.

http://bishophill.squarespace.com/blog/2009/11/20/climate-cuttings-33.html

Phil Jones writes to University of Hull to try to stop sceptic Sonia Boehmer Christiansen using her Hull affiliation. Graham F Haughton of Hull University says its easier to push greenery there now SB-C has retired.(1256765544)
Michael Mann discusses how to destroy a journal that has published sceptic papers.(1047388489)
Tim Osborn discusses how data are truncated to stop an apparent cooling trend showing up in the results (0939154709). Analysis of impact here. Wow!
Phil Jones describes the death of sceptic, John Daly, as “cheering news”.
Phil Jones encourages colleagues to delete information subject to FoI request.(1212063122)
Phil Jones says he has use Mann’s “Nature trick of adding in the real temps to each series”…to hide the decline”. Real Climate says “hiding” was an unfortunate turn of phrase.(0942777075)
Letter to The Times from climate scientists was drafted with the help of Greenpeace.(0872202064)
Mann thinks he will contact BBC’s Richard Black to find out why another BBC journalist was allowed to publish a vaguely sceptical article.(1255352257)
Kevin Trenberth says they can’t account for the lack of recent warming and that it is a travesty that they can’t.(1255352257)
Tom Wigley says that Lindzen and Choi’s paper is crap.(1257532857)
Tom Wigley says that von Storch is partly to blame for sceptic papers getting published at Climate Research. Says he encourages the publication of crap science. Says they should tell publisher that the journal is being used for misinformation. Says that whether this is true or not doesn’t matter. Says they need to get editorial board to resign. Says they need to get rid of von Storch too. (1051190249)
Ben Santer says (presumably jokingly!) he’s “tempted, very tempted, to beat the crap” out of sceptic Pat Michaels. (1255100876)
Mann tells Jones that it would be nice to ‘”contain” the putative Medieval Warm Period’. (1054736277)
Tom Wigley tells Jones that the land warming since 1980 has been twice the ocean warming and that this might be used by sceptics as evidence for urban heat islands.(1257546975)
Tom Wigley say that Keith Briffa has got himself into a mess over the Yamal chronology (although also says it’s insignificant. Wonders how Briffa explains McIntyre’s sensitivity test on Yamal and how he explains the use of a less-well replicated chronology over a better one. Wonders if he can. Says data withholding issue is hot potato, since many “good” scientists condemn it.(1254756944)
Briffa is funding Russian dendro Shiyatov, who asks him to send money to personal bank account so as to avoid tax, thereby retaining money for research.(0826209667)
Kevin Trenberth says climatologists are nowhere near knowing where the energy goes or what the effect of clouds is. Says nowhere balancing the energy budget. Geoengineering is not possible.(1255523796)
Mann discusses tactics for screening and delaying postings at Real Climate.(1139521913)
Tom Wigley discusses how to deal with the advent of FoI law in UK. Jones says use IPR argument to hold onto code. Says data is covered by agreements with outsiders and that CRU will be “hiding behind them”.(1106338806)
Overpeck has no recollection of saying that he wanted to “get rid of the Medieval Warm Period”. Thinks he may have been quoted out of context.(1206628118)
Mann launches RealClimate to the scientific community.(1102687002)
Santer complaining about FoI requests from McIntyre. Says he expects support of Lawrence Livermore Lab management. Jones says that once support staff at CRU realised the kind of people the scientists were dealing with they became very supportive. Says the VC [vice chancellor] knows what is going on (in one case).(1228330629)
Rob Wilson concerned about upsetting Mann in a manuscript. Says he needs to word things diplomatically.(1140554230)
Briffa says he is sick to death of Mann claiming his reconstruction is tropical because it has a few poorly temp sensitive tropical proxies. Says he should regress these against something else like the “increasing trend of self-opinionated verbiage” he produces. Ed Cook agrees with problems.(1024334440)
Overpeck tells Team to write emails as if they would be made public. Discussion of what to do with McIntyre finding an error in Kaufman paper. Kaufman’s admits error and wants to correct. Appears interested in Climate Audit findings.(1252164302)
Jones calls Pielke Snr a prat.(1233249393)
Santer says he will no longer publish in Royal Met Soc journals if they enforce intermediate data being made available. Jones has complained to head of Royal Met Soc about new editor of Weather [why?data?] and has threatened to resign from RMS.(1237496573)
Reaction to McIntyre’s 2005 paper in GRL. Mann has challenged GRL editor-in-chief over the publication. Mann is concerned about the connections of the paper’s editor James Saiers with U Virginia [does he mean Pat Michaels?]. Tom Wigley says that if Saiers is a sceptic they should go through official GRL channels to get him ousted. (1106322460) [Note to readers - Saiers was subsequently ousted]
Later on Mann refers to the leak at GRL being plugged.(1132094873)
Jones says he’s found a way around releasing AR4 review comments to David Holland.(1210367056)
Wigley says Keenan’s fraud accusation against Wang is correct. (1188557698)
Jones calls for Wahl and Ammann to try to change the received date on their alleged refutation of McIntyre [presumably so it can get into AR4](1189722851)
Mann tells Jones that he is on board and that they are working towards a common goal.(0926010576)
Mann sends calibration residuals for MBH99 to Osborn. Says they are pretty red, and that they shouldn’t be passed on to others, this being the kind of dirty laundry they don’t want in the hands of those who might distort it.(1059664704)

The list continues.
#118 perpwalk
November 21, 2009

I’m a lefty, and I think it’s a crock. 12 trees, huh?
#119 a lurker
November 21, 2009

It seems anyone who thinks the “trick” email is damning doesn’t have much experience in the sciences (or computer programming, for that matter). It is a shortcut, a hack, a clever little item to make things a bit easier. It is not an attempt to deceive.

This a thing that is really puzzling me is why there is any dispute about this? This use of the word “trick” is hardly limited technical fields and is included in any dictionary of the English language.

Here is from a paperback dictionary (The American Heritage Dictionary Third Edition. New York: Dell. 1994.) here are some relevant definitions:

4.a. A feat requiring special knowledge. b. A specialized skill: the tricks of the trade. 5. A feat of magic or legerdemain. 6. A cleaver act.
#120 pmg
November 21, 2009

Who’s dick are you sucking sir?
#121 pough
November 21, 2009

Michael Mann discusses how to destroy a journal that has published sceptic papers.(1047388489)

This one is interesting. I was assuming, based on the wording of the above as well as the perpetual denialist spin, that Mann would admit that the sceptics are on to something so the journal needs to be destroyed. Not so. Here are some bits of the email you might not see posted at denialist sites:

The Soon & Baliunas paper couldn’t have cleared a ‘legitimate’ peer review process anywhere. That leaves only one possibility–that the peer-review process at Climate Research has been hijacked by a few skeptics on the editorial board. And it isn’t just De Frietas, unfortunately I think this group also includes a member of my own department… The skeptics appear to have staged a ‘coup’ at “Climate Research” (it was a mediocre journal to begin with, but now its a mediocre journal with a definite ‘purpose’).

He pretty obviously thinks of the paper (and journal) in question as junk. Not a valid threat: complete junk that should never have been published because it was flawed. Also, he doesn’t seem to be saying that it and the journal should be “destroyed” for political reasons. In fact, the opposite. It should be shunned because it was politicized into worthlessness.
#122 Jones
November 21, 2009

Help out on wikipedia!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Climategate

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Climatic_Research_Unit
#123 History Punk
November 21, 2009

I agree with Mr. Hrynyshyn that the scandal aspect of this hack is overblown. As for FOIA violations, if people actually went to jail for violating FOIA here in the US, the CIA would be run from a federal prison.

However, given the alleged compromise in CRU’s professionalism, how about we disregard all their work on global warming. Simply toss it out the rubbish. Now, is global warming still a solid theory and body explanation for the climate changes we see today? Yeah. It is.
#124 ericg
November 22, 2009

“yes…we made it all up, for money! beautiful MONEY! oh, i love to rub my government funding dollars all over my naked skin while little “green suckers” buy curly lightbulbs and ugly cars! It gives me immense satisfaction! It was hard, but we finally got most scientists, professional scientific organizations and government organizations to play in on it! Al Gore shall be rewarded handsomely for agreeing to donate all of his earnings to non-profits to sell the ploy!

O yea, and Bob, could you destroy all the data and fudge some more results?”

Did anyone see that email?

tax avoidance =/= tax evasion
#125 MadScientist
November 22, 2009

Dang, I’ll have to find another conspiracy to join now.

As for ethics, I wouldn’t waste time reading any of the stolen email; I’m sure none of it was intended for me. I’m in a different branch of the conspiracy.
#126 David Estlund
November 22, 2009

I seldom invoke the supernatural (because I don’t believe in it) but JESUS CHRIST! At least evolution/vaccine deniers make a pretense of scientific argument. Hell, they bend over backwards to justify their ~~lies~~ claims. These folks don’t bother. I would hope peak oil hits them on the ass on their way out, except it’s going to hit me too. Along with a string of ecological events that will leave us all in exactly the Orwellian world of continuous war/famine/disaster that they pretend they’re protecting us from. If Jesus were going to come back, he should come back right now to tell these people what for.
#127 Surely
November 22, 2009

Sorry for being late to the party.

@bi (#65):

“So you’re now calling yourself a force of nature who’s just causing ‘suspicions’ to be ‘naturally’ ‘raised’?”

Would you have preferred if I used the word “logical” in replace of “natural”, since I meant this to imply its usage with regards to the method of reasoning called induction? I.e. if I know my brother has stolen my wallet in the past when I placed it near my bed, than I will adapt my behavior to safeguard my wallet from the same theft by not placing it near my bed. This adaptation can be called suspicion – that is, I am uncertain that my wallet will not be stolen if left on my bed side again (see merriam-webster definition of suspicion), and my brother requires more scrutiny until this uncertainty is removed.

In this case, written evidence of suggestions of deleting public data (context is besides the issue), and hopes of the occurrence of global warming to exonerate the researchers, raises uncertainty about the conclusiveness of the claims being presented about global warming. For instance, Einstein did not have to doubt his theory of general relativity was true after the famous solar eclipse photo captured by Eddington corroborated him. The conclusiveness is really the crux of the issue here, especially with talk regarding fundamentally altering the modern economy, and these e-mails show the doubts amongst even the top proponents, truly a crushing blow to any discussion on changing the economy in the immediate future. Perhaps the “Eddington photo” will emerge eventually, but the main revelation here is that it has not, at least in the minds of these exalted researchers.
#128 Chris Salmon
November 22, 2009

“tax avoidance =/= tax evasion”

Well this is the second posting claiming this has something to do .. with something. But it doesn’t matter if you’re “smurfing” to avoid OR evade taxes, or if you just don’t like the gov’t knowing your business. It’s the ACT of structuring deposits in less than $10,000 increments that is the crime. It doesn’t matter why you’re doing it.

———————
In the United States, the Bank Secrecy Act requires the filing of a currency transaction report (CTR) for transactions of more than $10,000 in currency (US or foreign). Financial institutions suspecting deposit structuring with intent to avoid the law are required to file a suspicious activity report.

Title 31 of the United States Code, section 5324, provides (in part):

No person shall, for the purpose of evading the reporting requirements of section 5313 (a) or 5325 or any regulation prescribed under any such section, the reporting or record keeping requirements imposed by any order issued under section 5326, or the record keeping requirements imposed by any regulation prescribed under section 21 of the Federal Deposit Insurance Act or section 123 of Public Law 91–508— [...] (3) structure or assist in structuring, or attempt to structure or assist in structuring, any transaction with one or more domestic financial institutions.

Section 5324 further provides that a violation of this provision may be punished by a fine or up to five years in prison, or both.[4]
———————————-

from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smurfing_(crime)

which I put in my first post regarding their crime in this regard, but naturally these smarties didn’t read it, assuming they know what they’re talking about, without actually knowing that they don’t know.

Obviously there was an intent to avoid the reporting requirements, and that’s the crime, not whether you “evade” or “avoid.” This is US of course, but obviously these people thought US or a similar law applied, or they wouldn’t try to avoid reporting.
#129 Surely
November 22, 2009

@Nils Ross (#66):

I agree with your points, that it is necessary to repudiate the outrageous rhetoric that will be engendered from this situation. If you see my previous post, however, I outlined what I just realized is probably the most damning thing about this. Specifically, in regards to the main contention with the following statement:

Global warming (or whatever terminology the present issue is called) is true.

The most glaring e-mail(s), such as ones regarding “political maneuvering” (e.g. contacting the BBC to question why a skeptical article was published – http://www.anelegantchaos.org/cru/emails.php?eid=1048&filename=1255352257.txt), reveal these scientists to express their evident frustrations with this statement not being believed. It is not a crime to be human, but I hope this further reinforces the point that perhaps the science, with its process being historically ugly, isn’t settled just yet.
#130 IJI
November 22, 2009

Surely:

Would you have preferred if I used the word “logical” in replace of “natural”,

No, I would’ve preferred if you simply called it “my suspicion“, rather than “a natural suspicion” or “a logical suspicion“.

And I would’ve preferred it you actually have any concrete evidence instead of just a ton of rhetorical bluster to back up your supposed ‘natural’ or ‘logical’ suspicions.

The fact that you try to use whatever term to impart an air of objectivity to your own subjective feelings speaks volumes more about you than about the e-mails.

– bi
#131 A
November 22, 2009

Delete everything mentioning AR4. Except this email where I’m telling you to delete it, obviously. I’d expect them to be smarter.
#132 Lucas McCarty
November 22, 2009

1. Does US law apply in Britain, specifically East Anglia? Does it apply to the Russian Foundation for Basic Research?

2. In the non quote-mined version, the author suggests that they do actually want to avoid breaking any laws and want to obtain proper documents.

3. What does this have to do with whether man-made climate change is happening?

4. Why are ‘sceptics’ using these e-mails to construct entirely new narratives for ‘the scam’? Why do the e-mails not support their previous spurious narratives?
#133 Jaber Aberburg
November 22, 2009

@Surely, your quote: “The content includes written evidence of suggesting the deliberate destroying of data preceding requests under compliance of the Freedom of Information Act, an outright crime, and logically an indication of chicanery on the part of these “scientists”.”

Deleting an e-mail is not the same as deleting data. Your reasoning is completely irrational, it’s hard to take you seriously.
#134 David Smith
November 22, 2009

I am a scientist. I am not convinced that man’s activities are the cause of global warming. What kind of scientist am I? I know many here would say a bad one but the answer is: a geologist.

To me it seems that there are two camps. The climatologists tend to support man-induced global warming, geologists tend to be skeptical. It is probably related to the foundation of our science, uniformitarianism, that is “the present is the key to the past,” or in layman’s terms, “history repeats itself”. We tend not to look at the last month, or last year, or the last hundred years; but the 4.5 billion years of earth history. When viewed in this context, the earths climate is not static. There is no global thermostat. The earth has warmed and cooled repeatedly and dramatically, even before the evolution of man. It has been much hotter than at present, and much cooler. There is no current consensus on the mechanism behind these fluctuations.

For geologists, changing climate on Earth is the norm, not the exception.

I am also a computer modeler although not a climate modeler. I understand that a key assumption for climate models is that if atmospheric CO2 increases, temperatures increase. When you then tell the model that CO2 increases, is it any wonder the computer will tell you temperatures increase?
#135 dhogaza
November 22, 2009

This is not Phil Jones “hard-earned work.: This data is public property, paid for by the public, and it should be in the public domain.

Chris Salmon is lying. Most of the raw data isn’t UK public property, it’s the property of a large number of national weather service bureaus around the world. Canada’s. The US’s. Botswana’s. Etc. CRU got the data under a variety of individual agreements with the NWS’s of other countries. In some cases, they can redistribute the raw data, in other cases they can’t. In many cases, particularly some time ago when computer storage was far more expensive than today, they didn’t bother keeping the raw data but only their value-added product.

The FOI actions are harassment as much as anything. McIntyre knows that if he wants the raw data, he’s got to go to various national weather services and ask for it (many would ask to be paid for it, others might refuse, but that’s life). Instead, he harasses CRU despite being told many times they can’t give him all of the raw data he seeks (and because of this, the FOI requests have been refused).

He does not have the right to withhold this data

Since CRU doesn’t own the data, he doesn’t have the right to do anything with the raw data that hasn’t been given him by the individual national weather services that are the source of the data.

as it is not his.

So if I lend you my car, the fact that it’s my car, not yours, FORCES YOU TO GIVE MY CAR AWAY?

Wow.

He does not have the right to destroy something that others have paid for, that is, in fact, not even owned by him.

What has been destroyed? Libel is actionable in the UK …
#136 Chris Salmon
November 22, 2009

Lucas,

“1. Does US law apply in Britain, specifically East Anglia? Does it apply to the Russian Foundation for Basic Research? ”

I do not know, but it’s obvious they are trying to keep the movement of money below reporting requirements of $10,000 per day, so the funds will not be reported to tax authorities. That would involve a law of some kind they are braking somewhere, wouldn’t it? Please explain it to me in another way that doesn’t involve breaking a reporting requirement, and therefore, a law.

“2. In the non quote-mined version, the author suggests that they do actually want to avoid breaking any laws and want to obtain proper documents.”

No it doesn’t! Please show me where it says any such thing? I believe you may be referring to this sentance:

“Please, inform us what kind of documents and financial reports we must represent you and your administration for these money.”

This says nothing about avoiding breaking any laws. He’s asking here, what documents she needs to provide to recieve the grant money. Then, once he gets the grant OK’d, rather than recieve all the money at once, he wants to smurf it, hiding it from reporting requirements! Again, please explain this in a different way.

3. What does this have to do with whether man-made climate change is happening?

Let’s say, *nothing*. Why does it have to have anything to do with that?

4. Why are ‘sceptics’ using these e-mails to construct entirely new narratives for ‘the scam’? Why do the e-mails not support their previous spurious narratives?

How do you know I’m a skeptic, since I’ve never said that I am? Please show me what previous spurious narratives I’ve constructed that are not supported by the emails?

What does any of this have to do with labeling someone, in your mind, as a skeptic?

Are you saying, that AGW “believers” (I suppose that’s the opposite of skeptic, right?) do not see any wrongdoing at CRU *because* they are believers? And if you DO see wrongdoing, it’s *because* you’re a skeptic?

It has nothing to do with the evidence? It’s only a matter of what “group” or “camp” you’re in – that is what decides whether you see CRU as having done anything wrong or not?

A believer sees no wrongdoing, no matter what the evidence, correct? A skeptic, sees wrongdoing, again, no matter what the evidence. There can be no objective view of the evidence, no view of whether wrongdoing occurred, outside your placement as a “believer” or a “skeptic” – right? You’re with us, or your against us, is that it ??

Is that what you are saying?
#137 Chris Salmon
November 22, 2009

dhogaza,

You could at least *try* to compose a logical, sensible and self-consistent argument, brother! This attack is just silly. For one thing, your following of the “party line” “talking points” from the CRU crowd here:

“In many cases, particularly some time ago when computer storage was far more expensive than today, they didn’t bother keeping the raw data but only their value-added product.”

HAHAhahahahah, oh my god, I think you really, actually might believe that, don’t you – because they said it, and they’re AGW “scientists” and you’re an AGW “believer” then .. well it must be true, right? They wouldn’t lie – only “skeptics” do that, right?

Well it’s not true that original raw data from the past must be discarded because “computer storage was far more expensive.” You’re basically saying that 9 track tape, invented by IBM in 1964, was expensive. I assure you, it was not. I know this personally, as I got my first job as a programmer in 1978 (I was 16) and we used 9 track then. I also know personally that valuable old data from 30 or even 40+ years ago is generally preserved by scientific organizations, becuase I worked as a geophysicist at one of the world’s largest data centers, and we could pull huge seismic datasets from the early 70′s – on 9 track tape – into our studies as needed.

So the CRU is just feeding you a line on this. I think you will believe whatever they tell you, because you are a “true believer” and any opposing thoughts must be from “skeptics” who you see as an enemy.

Well I’ll return later to fence with you on some of your other statements, but let me close this post with this incredible piece of illogic you have here:

“He does not have the right to destroy something that others have paid for, that is, in fact, not even owned by him.

What has been destroyed? Libel is actionable in the UK …”

You used a sentence, in which I did not say that anything had been destroyed, to ask what has been destroyed?? Then you use that non-sequitur to accuse me of libel? Hahaha hahah hahahha do you, maybe, see a logical problem with this??

I’ll have to repeat myself here, I’m really starting to feel exactly the way I feel talking to a bunch of creationists. Logic, reasoning, and evidence has no effect whatsoever on some of these AGW true believers. I never thought the “AGW is a religion” meme was real, until now. CRU is like a high priesthood, being defended rabidly by a bunch of faithful acolytes, and to these folks, CRU can do no wrong. Pointing out wrongdoing at CRU, will get you labeled a “skeptic” (a ‘non-believer’? An ‘infidel’?) regardless of whether you say anything about AGW at all, which I haven’t. It doesn’t matter, you’ve blasphemed the priesthood, so you must be a ‘non-believer’ and you are, therefore, an enemy of the faith.

There’s a G. Bush type “you’re with us, or you’re agin’ us” thing going on here, that allows no questioning, no doubt, no thought of wrongdoing, nothing but the pure faith. It’s interesting to see this psycho-social aspect of the AGW hypothesis drawn out of these folks in this forum.
#138 Marco
November 22, 2009

Chris Salmon, you may actually appear to be coherent if you acknowledged your erroneous claim that the raw data (which was the main portion of the FOIA request) was PUBLICALLY owned, while evidence is abundant, including in the e-mails (gasp!), that it contains a lot of proprietary information given by others.

The funny thing is that Jones also discusses the option to calculate the raw data back from the value-added data, based on (notably published) methodology developed at UEA. It would indeed “piss off” the people demanding the data, since they would HAVE the raw data (and yet, not quite), and could have done that themselves. Moreover, there will be many places where raw data has been deleted, when the value-added data is of relevance and when the raw data can be calculated back from that same value-added data.
#139 Reader
November 22, 2009

It’s really not amazing anymore, to see how desperately (stupid) the denialist crowd is. They’ve been losing ground against the factual evidence for decades. Now we’ve got this.

Big deal. Doesn’t even matter if the scientist involved screwed up, it doesn’t change the science or the results of thousands of peer-reviewed research articles and published data from all over the world. Ah yes, the facts, lest we forget.

The convenience of overlooking the scientific method must be quite heady for these idiots. Never mind that the hack was immoral and illegal, they’ll take it as “proof”.

Of what?

How about these dipshits start explaining the melting going on? Or the sea level rise? Or the disappearing glaciers? Or severe droughts? Or the displaced islanders? Or the massive forest fires? Duh — do you think it might be related to what is happening with the climate?

Nahhhh, how could it be?

It’s a nearly endless cause and effect list of disasters happening all over the world, but nooooooo…. we’ve got hacked emails and none of this is real. They are implying that ALL of the data is faked.

The implication and meaning is dead obvious. They will stoop at nothing, and I mean NOTHING to “prove” their bogus viewpoint, doesn’t matter if it is immoral, unethical or illegal. The desperation we’re seeing is pathetic.

Unfortunately, it’s also quite meaningless, because the climate is going to do what the climate is going to do. And because of the widespread refusal to believe the measurable facts and evidence, it is going to get significantly worse. That is a fact, and the denialsphere is going to have to learn to live with it just like the rest of us.

None of these people are smart enough to realize that they are helping to create a hotter hell on this planet for their own kids. I do wonder how they’re going to explain that away.

“Well, we found these emails…. and we thought it meant that they were wrong, and we were right“.

“But Daddy, what about all the other stuff? Didn’t they have other measurements, other evidence from other places?”

“Well, yeah, I suppose they did…. but we assumed that it was all bogus….”

“Really Daddy? Didn’t anybody even check?”

“Well, no, not really…”

“Why not Daddy? It sure is hot today. Why didn’t someone check the rest of the stuff?”

“Well, we were too busy making sure we were right, you know, to make sure you had a future….”

“Really? Some future Daddy, it’s too hot here. When are we going to find something to eat?”

“I don’t know son, I don’t know….”
#140 debreuil
November 22, 2009

This is the internet, do not get your opinions from others. Read the source Luke, read the source.

You owe it to your self to read at least a few of those, you won’t be disappointed.
#141 Paulsnz
November 22, 2009

Spin Spin,, What about the program code that shows some questionable “exclusion code” of negative temperatures.
#142 yeah
November 22, 2009

I work in the forensics section of a police department, my office is going to trial for a very significant murder, why I am saying this the defense has full disclosure that includes everything, including all emails sent and received regarding this operation which they have. Well it is easy to say the people who hacked the scientist working to this project are criminals, I say for something as big as this, the emails and all correspondence should be there for public disclosure anyway.
#143 Chris Salmon
November 22, 2009

@marco,

“Chris Salmon, you may actually appear to be coherent if you acknowledged your erroneous claim that the raw data (which was the main portion of the FOIA request) was PUBLICALLY owned, while evidence is abundant, including in the e-mails (gasp!), that it contains a lot of proprietary information given by others.”

You are right, of course. Yes, I’m happy to acknowledge that I didn’t take into account, in my first writings regarding release of data subject to FOIA requests, that some (a considerable amount, apparently) of the data required a license paid for by the CRU department, was owned by others, and they were doing the right thing by not re-releasing the data to someone who didn’t pay the owners for it. And, I would further say, that it looks like McIntyre could easily be trying to abuse the FOIA by attempting to use it to save himself licensing fees on some data, and it may even be that the continued volume of requests was a sort of a “gotcha” poke at the CRU people in some tit-for-tat game they had going between each other.
But I thought about this while I cleaned up and went to Sunday lunch with the family, and I think there might be an opportunity here for some useful work. Why don’t we put together some grant proposals, to construct several “World Climate Data Centers” (at least three mirrors to ensure uptime and availability of data and storage). These “WCDC’s” would then compile and make available, all climate data held or produces by all related agencies throughout the world. To answer these licensing problems, UN or other international money could purchase large volume licensing and then make the datasets so licensed available at reasonable (cheap) fees to everyone interested in studying climate science and data. Old data, on old strip logs or written records, would be digitized and also kept in the WCDC databases. In order to make reports to orgs like the IPCC, you would have to place links in your papers to all the data at the WCDC that was used in your study.
Modeling code, should certainly be open source, and also made available at the WCDC’s. Individual programmers should be able to contribute to the modeling code, as is done with, say, Linux development.
The systems should contain the very best of datacenter safety and technology, and be replicated, as I said, in at least three different locations throughout the world, those three datacenters then connected through redundant fiber and other connection technologies.
You know, this might solve a lot of these problems. Then all the data and code that is used in climate modeling and prediction would be available to all of mankind (that wanted it), as I believe it should be. Perhaps there could be a small granting function for poor departments or schools that wanted to study the models and data.
If anyone wants to work with me on a proposal like this, please contact me at chris@cst.net – perhaps some real good can come out of this fiasco. Obviously, the way they’re doing things now is leading to polarization, false dichotomies, an oligarchical component, and “tribal” squabbling and bickering. I’m quite sure true progress on real, true answsers could be arrived at more quickly and accurately with this WCDC concept, rather than the fractured situation we see on display at the CRU.
#144 James Rinnnytintin
November 22, 2009

More aptly titled…..the global warming alarmist pseudo-journalist that wasn’t.
#145 Ricky
November 22, 2009

Wait a minute – Galen Haughs nonsensical screed seems to be suggesting simultaneously that ice ages are predictable, and that we are 500 years overdue one. So just how predictable are they?

Ask Milankovitch.

Nobody else sees this as evidence that we are instinctively saving our own butts from freezing to death, since we warm the globe like clueless squirrels that instead bury nuts for the winter.

No, of course, that wouldn’t do for either side, so we won’t even think like that.
#146 Sunny Black
November 22, 2009

How did these hackers know to hack these particular accounts? How’d they know where to look?

That said, they might be heroes.
#147 miui
November 22, 2009

This event reminds me a lot of the Media Defender email hack kerfuffle. Many “free (down)loaders” were also screaming for joy about obtaining secrets, government conspiracies, and “illegal” indiscretions through corporate emails. What happened, of course, was that there were hundreds of emails people barely bothered to read in their entirety, and what people got to hear were quotes out of context, and terrifying half-truths about MD’s secret government project and “mining” internet program. While these titles sound horrifying by themselves, they don’t bother to mention that the government project involved tracing child-porn distributors, and that the web software was a side project that had nothing to do with media protection.

While some of the emails might indeed show that some faculty within University of East Anglia’s Climatic Research Unit needs harsh disciplining and scrutiny, it doesn’t get rid of decades of scientific evidence leading to the conclusion that something needs to get done about our abuse of the environment. And if it all turns out to be a hoax, then hey! Great! But I’ll still consider a car that doesn’t give money to foreign psychotic fundamentalists countries, and use low watt bulbs which will save me money. Oh the pain of going green!!
#148 Surely
November 23, 2009

@Jaber Aberburg (#133):

I understand you believe I attempted to mislead by taking “data” to mean the same meaning you are taking it to be, which I assume to be measurements, graphs, code, etc. yet as far as the law goes, an e-mail is not distinguishable from a plot – they are both datum.

Further, I find it intriguing that Nils Ross at comment #41 understood my meaning, but you didn’t. Perhaps it is easier to nitpick and cast me as irrational, rendering my whole discourse on this thread useless, rather than take on the issues I raise head-on?
#149 Marco
November 23, 2009

@Chris Salmon: thanks.

Your idea, however, has a minor caveat: why would organisations sell their data to an organisation that would then make it available (even if at a small fee)? Another minor caveat: people can actually calculate back the raw data using the published methodology (although not at a per-station basis).

I’ve also just read some of the e-mails, and I recommend others to do the same, about the FOIA requests to Ben Santer. It’s both an enjoyable and shocking read: McIntyre inundates people with FOIA requests, including for freely available data and published methodology. WTF? To me it looks exactly like the description of Ben Santer: a deliberate attempt to keep them from doing actual science, not a genuine attempt to ‘audit’ the data.
#150 Surely
November 23, 2009

@bi (#130):

I concede that I personally became suspicious, but I am further arguing that this “suspicion” is not purely subjective – I believe these e-mails can lead to uncertainty (i.e. suspicion) logically, and if one does not view this statement to be true, then they are being irrational. But that’s the whole point of our disagreement, isn’t it?

I previously outlined how this suspicion can be inferred through inductive reasoning. The point is, regardless of the outcome of this whole mess, e-mails exposing the advocacy of a boycott of a scientific journal because they have published papers in opposition to your claims, or the questioning of the BBC for publishing a position opposite to yours – as two examples unearthed – reveals the bad practicing of science, hence it is rational to doubt their practice of science, again inductively.
#151 Chris Salmon
November 23, 2009

@marco,

“why would organisations sell their data to an organisation that would then make it available (even if at a small fee)”

That’s a good question. I believe you’re looking at a couple of ways this could work. If you could show that the increased volume of usage, makes up or more than makes up from a decrease in per-usage fees, or licenses, then the data could bring the org *more* revenue than high, but rarely purchased, licensing.

Also there is an opportunity for the orgs involved to have access to other entities’ data, in return for making their data part of the pool. The data is likely worth more, when made a part of this WCDC concept, in combination with all the other data and code, than it is worth as an isolated dataset. So everyone benefits, and by contributing, your data is more valuable and you are better able to do your own research.

I can think of a couple of examples in other industries, for instance BGP “peering” in the internet business, involves networks agreeing to carry each other’s traffic for free. They meet in rooms full of routers – Network Access Points or NAP’s. Why do they do that? Because each network is made more valuable, the more nodes you have connected to it. Peering agreements are designed to balance usage and money. So if you peer with a large carrier, and they rarely send their traffic to you, but you’re always sending traffic for them to carry, then you’re not really a peer and you own them money. Same thing could be done at the WCDC’s with data (and code?) providers.

Another example is log libraries in the oil business. It’s to everyone’s benefit to have as much geological data available to all geologists working an area as possible. So the companies and state agencies involved will put together a database of well logs, maps, seismic, geochem or wat have you, in a log library. The state may require you to submit your proprietary data to the public realm after a certain period, and this also goes into the log library. Again the more data there is, the more each datum is worth.

The idea makes sense to me.

Re: McIntyre, don’t you think it’s possible it was something like, CRU refuses his first requests out of hand. He responds with more requests, they further delay and stonewall, and then give him frustrating data designed to piss him off. So then he retailiates, along the lines of, “Won’t answer one good request huh? Well here, eat a hundred of them!” or whatever – some escalating pissing contest between him and the CRU or him and Phil Jones??

For clarity: just speculating here, I don’t have firm evidence from the hacked files that this was the case.
#152 Chris R
November 23, 2009

Where did all the denialists come from? Did something happen to their bridge?

We are hear to gloat, laugh at ridiculous spin and otherwise twist the knife in the alarmists’ chest. We feel the glee that antiwar activists felt when the Pentagon Papers were published, because this, like that, is an unmistakable sign of total victory.

“An Inconvenient Truth” will be mocked by future generations as much as “Reefer Madness” is today.
#153 Joe
November 23, 2009

Looks like the writer here is full of shit lol. Fart Tax Scam and New World Order is going down! Freedom and Constitution for life!
#154 dan from NZ
November 23, 2009

[quote]Did your dog write this article?[/quote]
LOL. Ditto.
#155 George D
November 23, 2009

The denialist trolls are out in force today.
#156 mswzebo
November 23, 2009

Well…I have yet to see a single ‘damning’ email…and I’m sure the billionaire industrialists have been trying hard to find them….. The use of the word ‘trick’ doesn’t somehow unburn all the fossil fuels that have been accumulating as CO2. And words from economically interested parties don’t seem to be convincing the Greenland ice sheets to stop melting. Probably the melting ice is just part of a spin campaign though, huh?
#157 Raging bee
November 23, 2009

There are dozens of emails that actively encourage people to manipulate data, other scientists or both. There are even some that encourage gross violations of the law to get out from under pesky FOIA requests.

Please provide specific quotes with references, or admit you’re just bluffing and making shit up.

Also, if any of those emails “encourage gross violations of the law,” then someone is obligated to pass them on to law-enforcement authorities, not to the blogosphere. Has this been done? If so, please refer us to the officers’ documented actions. If not, why not?
#158 Raging Bee
November 23, 2009

Further proof of the denialists’ hypocricy and desperation is evident when we consider that they’re trumpeting (what they allege is said in) these emails, as “proof” that global warming is a hoax, without backing down from their contrary assertion that it’s too late to stop global warming so let’s all just shut up and deal with it.
#159 Marco
November 23, 2009

@Chris Salmon:
You forget a tiny, yet important detail on data sharing: the organisations that would have to allow sharing of the data are depending on that data to make money, by using it to predict local weather. This is not small change, notably. They’d have to be assured of a steady stream of users before they’d ever allowed the data to be used for “a small fee”. Sharing data with competitive agencies? Unlikely, too. Don’t expect banks to share information about their customers and spending ways with each other. Way too important to stay ahead of the competition.
And let’s not forget that the data IS available, just not the raw data. You could calculate what it was, using published methods (which is why CRU has deleted raw data in the past: that data is in essence not relevant for their methodology and just takes up storage place and collects dust).

Let’s not speculate too much on what set McIntyre off with his FOIA requests. But it’s unlikely to be (solely?) related to Phil Jones ‘stonewalling’ him. Ben Santer also got McIntyre on his neck, notably for data that was freely available, and for methodology that was freely available. Most likely reason: Santer had shown a ‘skeptic’ paper to be fatally flawed. The politics of McIntyre are clear: under no circumstances are ‘skeptic’ papers to be criticised, whereas even the slightest error in mainstream papers are to be blown out of proportion. With defamatory insinuations if necessary.
#160 Mark
November 23, 2009

@ Chris Salmon:

Just wanted to say that I’ve really enjoyed your rational, informed input to this thread. I would certainly have stopped reading said thread ages ago if not for your well considered and thoughtful responses. Kudos, sir!

BTW, your analogy to Creationists has been amply demonstrated in the responses you have received.
#161 Ricky
November 24, 2009

Mark, you act like this is the first time that you liberal fanatics have been caught letting your ideology define the limits of science. What a joke, and the fact that you only see one side as being ideologically motivated only proves the point, which most definitely does extend to include the “CrEvo” debate:

But we’ve got a grand opportunity to test this historical fact again, since the republicans in congress have now decided to have a look at the emails to see if liberal scientists have been trying to manipulate science:

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB125902685372961609.html

I’m betting that the politicians in DC will nearly word-for-word mimic the accusations and denial of the unscientific ideologues that have been tossing their own brand of politically distorted science back and forth in this thread.
#162 g
November 24, 2009

Feeble attempt at a whitewash.But this is good because of how lame and absolutely how no research went in to it, so in fact this discredits yr’ cause even further, lol.
#163 Chris Salmon
November 24, 2009

@marco – yes, I thought about that, some restriction would have to be made so that cheap data is not used for commercial (for profit) weather forecasting, or as a way to circumvent the normal fees for data so used.
I don’t know all the details, but it seems that something needs to be, should be, done similar to my WCDC concept. The data should all be available to all researchers all in one place and so should the model code. It all needs to be in the open. This way of placing these data and decisions in the hands of a small coterie is obviously not working out very well. Perhaps the AGW hypothesis wouldn’t be questioned so vehemently by so many, if it was all in the open where all observers could agree on some things. Or perhaps it would go the other way – we don’t know at this point.

@mark – thank you, that’s kind of you to say, I feel that I let my smart-ass side get out a couple times and I need to keep a leash on that, but I would sincerely like to contribute and not just argue.
#164 Marco
November 24, 2009

@Chris Salmon: what seems to be overlooked that CRU is actually in negotiations (for a while already) to allow wider access to data. Another ‘tiny’ oversight is that a LOT of data is publically available. Worse even: access to the data isn’t too hard to get. All you need to do is contact the owner of the data and set up a collaboration. But this is not what a lot of people want: they only want to criticise, and not in a constructive way. Just look carefully at McIntyre’s criticisms: rather than propose better methodology, he tries to break down the methodology used. He’s not out to improve science, he’s out to stiffle it.

Also, the data isn’t easy to understand, and most people simply do not have the mental capacity to understand the pitfalls with the data, and that includes other scientists. For example, I myself have recently had a Letter to the Editor accepted, criticizing a group of scientists using methods taken from textbooks, but falling into just about any and all pitfalls possible (and to get things really clear: it is in essence a huge embarrassment to the journal and its reviewers, which are supposed to be experts in the topic).
#165 Science Avenger
November 24, 2009

“An Inconvenient Truth” will be mocked by future generations as much as “Reefer Madness” is today.

Hardly. As others have pointed out, the creationist comparison fits for the AGW deniers, not the AGW scientists. Quotemining, dependence on fake (ie noncredentialled and/or out of their field) experts, refusal to address the peer-reviewed literature, failure to do any science that offers better models than the AGW ones, and on and on.

Much more likely than the comparison above is that this email hack non-event will go down next to the “but the moths were glued to the trees and Darwin married his cousin” in the pile of nonarguments made by science deniers.

For those interested, I dissect some of these supposed smoking gun emails here. As usual with denialism, its all noise and no substance.
#166 Brian Macker
November 24, 2009

Daniel J. Andrews,

So you think that you can deduce what happened merely on an analysis of an alternate meaning of the word “trick”. In actuality the trick was used to distort and in fact the sentence in question used the word “hide”, as in “I used the magic trick to hide where the coin was”.

It’s been explained already exactly what the trick was in prior comments, and it wasn’t honest.

What’s funny is your comment is so condescending when you aren’t even bright enough to understand this simple problem.
#167 Kit
November 25, 2009

And the SPIN begins!!!!!!BUSTED!!!!
#168 Beonda Pale
November 25, 2009

What is missing here is truly absurd! These non-scientist, Washington Times types dancing with glee at this moment, actually support (by default) the continued and unprecedented experiment of adding ever increasing and still exponential amounts of CO2 into the only environment our planet has.

Would ANY scientist say that such additions of CO2 can be continued without consequence?
#169 Inside Bilderberg
November 25, 2009

Kudos for Fow News covering this to some extent; http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2009/11/24/john-lott-climate-change-emails-copenhagen/
#170 dhogaza
November 25, 2009

Sigh, from Lott (who is smart enough to know better):

Another professor at the Climate Research Unit, Tim Osborn, discusses in e-mails how truncating a data series can hide a cooling trend that would otherwise be seen in the results

Except, of course, the instrumental (thermometer and satellite) record shows that the “cooling trend” in the tree ring data is spurious, which is why it has been rejected.

They tell us that tree ring data is useless as a temperature proxy 1000 years ago while wanting us to believe that the recent tree ring data is more accurate than modern thermometers or satellite temperature reconstructions.

Make up your minds, denialists!
#171 MarkusR
November 25, 2009

The denialists appear to have a trait: They don’t actually know what’s in the emails, but it must be bad! The dude at ‘climateskeptic’ said so!
#172 Dale Husband
November 25, 2009

“They tell us that tree ring data is useless as a temperature proxy 1000 years ago while wanting us to believe that the recent tree ring data is more accurate than modern thermometers or satellite temperature reconstructions. Make up your minds, denialists!”

I think what the denialists are claiming is that proxies are useless even for measurements 1000 years ago, let alone in the past few decades.

Of course, if we follow that logic to its conclusion, we might end up with the idea that even the estimated age of the Earth (4.6 billion years), might be totally wrong!

Has anyone investigated to find out why tree rings and ice cores from hundreds or thousands of years ago are considered reliable on temperature measurements? Maybe they are not!
#173 travc
November 25, 2009

A few points of reality…

Many groups studying climate change don’t want to release their data because it takes a lot of effort and resources to get the data and they want to reap the payoffs (publications) for their investments. This happens in many fields where collecting data is difficult. It is completely understandable, though unfortunate.

You would probably be flabbergasted at the political schmoozing, questionable payments, and general sleaziness one has to deal with just to get relatively simple meteorological data from government agencies in many countries. Stuff like actual field work collecting samples, taking cores, and such is also far from cheap and easy.

I don’t know the specifics of the $10,000 a day thing, but I can tell you it is pretty routine to have to come up with “creative” ways to deal with allocating grant money, especially when working with inter-institute collaborations, and double-plus especially when dealing with international money transfers (such as for field work). There are all sorts of baroque rules and restrictions, and the budget line items in the original grant tend to be poor estimates of what is actually needed. Moving money around is a necessity. Also lots of grants are approved with cut funding (“do the same work for 1/2 the cost, and we’ll approve it”), which further pushes the need to get “creative”.

The ‘delete emails’ thing is interesting. I’d like to see the context. I’ve only seen this sort of thing a couple of times, and it involved inadvertent dissemination of other people’s work (or data) without proper permissions. When dealing with expensive/difficult to acquire data, folks can get quite touchy. This would be my first guess, but without context it is impossible to know.

As for:
“The two MMs have been after the CRU station data for years. If they ever hear there is a Freedom of Information Act now in the UK, I think I’ll delete the file rather than send to anyone.”
Sounds like routine venting / trash-talk to me. Again, it is ‘their’ station data and they don’t want to share. It almost certainly isn’t about falsification, it is about being competitive and milking the expensive data for publications.
#174 dhogaza
November 26, 2009

I think what the denialists are claiming is that proxies are useless even for measurements 1000 years ago, let alone in the past few decades.

But they’re screaming high and wide about the “trick” of “hiding” the recent (tree ring proxy) “cooling trend”, condemning the use of the instrumental record instead.

They can’t have it both ways. If the tree ring proxies showing recent cooling (“decline” due to the “divergence problem”) are more accurate than satellite and thermometer data, then they should also be more accurate than past MWP, blah blah, shit they spew.
#175 dhogaza
November 26, 2009

Has anyone investigated to find out why tree rings and ice cores from hundreds or thousands of years ago are considered reliable on temperature measurements?

No, of course not, scientists devoting their careers to these issues would never think of investigating such things (sigh).
#176 William Wallace
November 26, 2009

Do a search on this…

Warwick Hughes, an Australian scientist, wondered where that “+/-” came from, so he politely wrote Phil Jones in early 2005, asking for the original data. Jones’s response to a fellow scientist attempting to replicate his work was, “We have 25 years or so invested in the work. Why should I make the data available to you, when your aim is to try and find something wrong with it?“

So much for peer review, which requires an aim to find something wrong with analysis.
#177 edrowland
November 27, 2009

You need to read more deeply.

> More interesting is what is not contained in the emails. > There is no evidence of any worldwide conspiracy,

There is however, evidence of a very localized conspiracy. Mann is from the US. Phil Jones is from the UK.

> no mention of George Soros nefariously funding climate research,

True. Not in the emails. The mention of nefarious funding of climate research by Shell International occurs in the documents directory.

FOIA\documents\uea-tyndall-shell-memo.doc

Shell’s financial interest in funding climate research (according to that document): profitable carbon offset trading markets, and CDMs (trading third-world carbon credits to the first world).

> no evidence of the falsifying of data,

Selection of data to reach a foregone conclusion IS falsification of data. That occurs in mulitple places in both the emails, and the documents directory. It’s documented at great length in the comments in the program files (which are in the documents directory).
#178 Thom Danes
November 27, 2009

So no comment on the evasion of FOI requests, and conspiring to delete emails?
#179 Douglas Watts
November 28, 2009

So no comment on the evasion of FOI requests, and conspiring to delete emails?

There is no evidence any emails were actually deleted, nor any evidence that the emails in question contained any information relevant to any FOI request.

And if this is all the evidence you have for a worldwide conspiracy to create fraudulent AGW data, you need to get back to work.
#180 Douglas Watts
November 28, 2009

I think what the denialists are claiming is that proxies are useless even for measurements 1000 years ago, let alone in the past few decades.

One minute, perhaps. The next minute they use these same proxies (which they claimed were false the last minute) as evidence of the Medieval Warming Period, which “proves” that there is no AGW.

Only an owl can spin its head around enough to keep up them.
#181 Douglas Watts
November 28, 2009

If Warwick Hughes’ blog is correct he as not published anything peer-reviewed on the subject of climate science for more than 12 years and just five papers or comments on the subject from 1992-1997.

CRU’s data agrees with that of NASA/GISS, which is all public.

Not sure why Mr. Hughes cannot just analyze NASA’s raw data since it shows the same thing as CRU’s.

The reason why CRU’s raw data cannot be accessed by freelancers like Mr. Hughes is explained here.

Hope this is informative.
#182 Douglas Watts
November 28, 2009

Gavin Schmidt explains his own frustration with the inaccessibility of data from some sources and the reasons why it is restricted to “paying customers”:

“There is much publicly collected data outside the US (which is much better in this regard) that is not available without payment. The Ordnance Survey maps in the UK for instance. Met Offices are often tasked to be revenue generating and so restrict access to some data to paying customers except in some academic uses (such as the data sent to CRU). While understandable, this is antithetical to the openness and transparency that people are (rightly) demanding. But you are blaming the wrong people here. (Note that the CRU data is not a computer model in the sense you imply – by the way, all computer model output used in AR4 is publicly available at PCMDI or ClimateExplorer). – gavin”

http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2009/11/the-cru-hack-context/comment-page-14/#comment-144849
#183 darek
November 29, 2009

As much as I would like to commend the perseverance of Chris Salmon on the basis of trying to point out the wrong doing of others, it does strike me as ironic that he has in fact violated the law himself by gaining access to the emails he knows were illegally breached. (I should say, at least I think it is illegal for those of second hand to see those emails as much as it was for the hackers to obtain them – but that is a matter up to the law).

So, as much as he rails against scientists for doing such awful things, he’s done an awful thing himself (as a self proclaimed scientist). Again, the irony shouldn’t go past anyone, but in case he still sees this post, Chris, if that is you’re only argument, that scientists are capable of bad things – look at you.
#184 Marco
November 29, 2009

@William Wallace: of course that quote is a third-hand quote. It’s Sonja Boehmer-Christiansen stating that Warwick Hughes got this answer from Phil Jones.

And no, peer review is not about trying to find something wrong. It is about trying to check whether it is correct. It’s a subtle difference, but one of major importance in this area of research: a peer reviewer finding a mistake would label it “minor” or “major”, depending on its impact. In the deniosphere, and Warwick Hughes is part of that, even the tiniest of errors is hit upon as “evidence of the AGW scam”, “fraud”, and whathaveyoumore.

Add to that, and this appears to be completely neglected by all ‘skeptics’, that 97-98% of all data in HADCRU is freely available. As discussed elsewhere, and notably something that Warwick Hughes himself had done and discussed with Phil Jones (although he likely was wrong), you can calculate the values for the vast majority of grids with that free data. If that does not show even minor errors, why so skeptic about the remaining 2-3%?
#185 Chris Salmon
November 29, 2009

@derek –

It is not illegal to access, study, or discuss publicly available material that is the result of a cracking event, so long as you did not do the cracking yourself. I didn’t.

Also I briefly considered (it “crossed my mind” is a better way to put it) putting up a website with the cracked/stolen material in a searchable/downloadable format, with discussion groups, etc., and slathering the whole thing with adsense and other advertising. However I quickly discarded that notion, as that would be profiting from the stolen material, which crosses an ethical and potentially legal boundary. I believe that many of the blogs and news sites are making money from the stolen material – I’m not, on purpose.

It seems that the material in question was being illegally withheld from the public in the first place, as it was the subject of legal FOIA requests.

Finally, it may be that there was no illegal cracking which occurred, but rather an inside whistleblower who put the material on the internet, OR – another possibility is that the CRU left the material open to public view unintentionally on a publicly accessible file server. When someone makes something available on the public internet, even unintentionally, it’s not illegal to access that material.

I’ve only defended my point of view that the CRU behavior was wrong and illegal. Posters asked for quotes, I gave quotes – but that wasn’t good enough, then they wanted context, I pointed to context, then that wasn’t good enough, either. Then the very meanings of the words the CRU themselves used was questioned, and my understanding of the relevant laws was questioned. Along the way I was attacked as a “denialist,” although I never discussed AGW, who was not knowledgeable – about things I hadn’t even discussed!! hahahahah I mean, that is just too funny, and shows the religious side to the discussion. So don’t paint me as on some lengthy self-righteous crusade to right wrongs here, I made some very simple statements at the top of the discussion and these were attacked in multiple ways, to which I merely responded in reasoned defense.
#186 Chris Salmon
November 29, 2009

@darek

Here you go, take a look at this:

“In the most analogous case, Bartnicki v. Vopper, members of a teachers union sued a radio announcer under state and federal wiretapping laws after he played an unlawfully recorded telephone conversation on the air. The radio show host had received the recording from a third party who himself had received the tape in the mail from an anonymous source. The Supreme Court held that the First Amendment prohibited the recovery of damages against the radio show host for publishing the tape, explaining that “a stranger’s illegal conduct does not suffice to remove the First Amendment shield from speech about a matter of public concern.” Id. at 535. The constitutional principle in Bartnicki and other Supreme Court cases is not limited to traditional forms of media like newspapers and radio broadcasters. See Mary T. Jean v. Massachusetts State Police, 492 F.3d 24 (1st Cir. 2007) (First Amendment barred criminal prosecution for posting illegally recorded video online when recording made by third party, even if knowing receipt of the recording constituted a crime under Massachusetts law).”

From “Citizen Media Law Project”

They may not allow links in comments here, so just do a web search on Bartnicki v. Vopper and you’ll find the relevant legal findings.
#187 darek
November 29, 2009

Chris Salmon,

I realize it may not be illegal, technically, for viewing the emails, I’m asking you to acknowledge the ethics involved in sifting through illegally obtained material.

You’ve obviously created a rod for your own back on how to justify it. That’s fine. But the excuses don’t impress me, frankly. Public server, public shmerver – those emails were not intended for you or I.

So, continue basting these people and questioning their ethics, but I don’t think its incorrect for me to suggest there is a bit of the pot calling the kettle black here.

I acknowledge that you didn’t explicitly link these people’s behavior to then denying AGW because of it (though I find it interesting that you do doubt it, what objections do you have?) but frankly, your allegations on these people – whether rightly or wrongly – is not really shocking to me. People (be they scientists, corporate executives, or average Joe’s) are guilty of tax fraud all the time.

That a scientist could be capable of this is kind of moot – if they are in fact guilty – let them get punished by the law. This shouldn’t effect their work or the organization they work for – as long as that’s clear, call them schiesters all you want.

Unfortunately, this is a far cry from what most people are complaining about – which is perpetuating that ‘link’ mentioned earlier.
#188 dhogaza
November 29, 2009

It seems that the material in question was being illegally withheld from the public in the first place, as it was the subject of legal FOIA requests.

Legal FOIA requests can be legally rejected, here in the US and in the UK (more easily in the UK).

What about “UEA’s FOI compliance office rejected the FOI request, and that rejection was upheld when appealed” do you not understand?
#189 dhogaza
November 29, 2009

Finally, it may be that there was no illegal cracking which occurred, but rather an inside whistleblower who put the material on the internet, OR – another possibility is that the CRU left the material open to public view unintentionally on a publicly accessible file server

Cracking the real climate server and depositing the file on their server is a crime.
#190 dhogaza
November 29, 2009

Then the very meanings of the words the CRU themselves used was questioned, and my understanding of the relevant laws was questioned.

Quite reasonably questioned, since you continuously show that your understanding is … limited, shall we say?

I’ve only defended my point of view that the CRU behavior was wrong and illegal. Posters asked for quotes, I gave quotes – but that wasn’t good enough, then they wanted context, I pointed to context, then that wasn’t good enough, either.

Well, when you’re wrong, that’s how it tends to go, dude.
#191 Mark_BC
November 29, 2009

I still haven’t been able to find a reasonably original source to see these emails without first being selectively filtered through a political blog. If what these guys did is indeed unethical as it seems, then they should be held accountable for that and dealt with accordingly. It’s a black eye on all of science.

What I find really interesting, however, is that the scientific consequences of what they did pale in comparison, by 1000 times, to what the denialist blogosphere has done to misrepresent climate science. I spend a lot of time reading through the anti-AGW denier “science”, like co2science.org, WUWT and the like, and the degree of outright lies and deceit is astounding. Yet it barely makes news. Why? Because oil companies and bloggers aren’t held to any code of conduct.

I guess scientists are expected to be held to a higher moral standing, and any time they veer from this then it’s worldwide news and the political spinsters go to town. Yet the oil industry does this every day to an extent that puts the climate gate scientists to shame.

From what I have seen none of this changes the scientific conclusions about AGW.
#192 Angry Bob
November 29, 2009

Holly mother of fuck,

Did this post bring out the peasant serfs of the Carbon polutters out in droves!

If anything, this post shows just how dead science is if these retards with fingers barely slender enough to punch the keyboard formulate their iron clad arguments this way…

Why dont you fuck off, hop in you hummer and fucking drive off to hunt the gators before the Socialist prezident Obama takes your guns away.

Fucking morons.
#193 Mark_BC
November 29, 2009

Relax Angry Bob, these guys will be dealt with appropriately. You can take comfort in the knowledge that this whole affair does nothing to change the evidence for a warming planet or the link between CO2 and temperature. It’s doing terrible things for the public image of science though, so if that is what you are hoping for then you need not be so angry.
#194 Chris Salmon
November 30, 2009

@dhogaza

Brother, I see where you’re coming from. Phil Jones (or apparently *any* AGW proponent) could strangle your pet cat right in front of you and you would be right back here apologizing and explaining for him. Or you might just do what you’re doing now and simply deny the facts that are right in front of you, because you don’t want to see them.

It doesn’t matter to you what the truth about people is, only what “side” their on. They’re either with you, or against you, in your mind.

Anyone who disagrees in the slightest way with your belief system on this topic is automatically wrong about anything related to it, including mis-doings at the CRU.
#195 sikiş izle
November 30, 2009

On some less-detailed maps their layout looks similar except they’re inverted relative to one another and there isn’t always a sign telling you you’ve crossed the border from one to the other. I once was using a map to navigate.
#196 Steve
November 30, 2009

It has never failed to surprise me, the number of science deniers. They have no research to back up what they argue, but no research is needed to prove a belief is there? They accuse scientists from different countries from all over the world associated with different institutions of being part of some cabal hell bent on making people “believe” that global warming is man made!? They make blanket claims that the research pointing toward man made global warming from multiple sources is invalid based on what? They argue that the earth’s climate is almost solely controlled by sun activity while ignoring all other inputs. In short they go by the motto “hear no evil, see no evil, speak no evil.” They will not be dissuaded from their “beliefs” no matter what the results of scientific peer reviewed studies suggest. Fine. Just post on the Washington Post or Fox News or some like non science based site and spare us your “beliefs” Or in the alternate post what it is that you think the evidence suggests and give us your reasoning. First it seemed that they were going to make the big scandal the fact that these guys used the word “trick” as a synonym for solution, since that was too easily explained now they are going for some FOIA illegal destruction of document argument. That this occurred in the UK is of no importance, that there was apparently no request for their personal e-mails is of no importance, that nothing illegal was done is of no importance. I am convinced that there is a concerted effort amongst the oil companies and those that wish to protect them to troll for any articles which mention global warming and then to attempt to take over the posts to make it appear that only a fool would believe the science.
#197 Tony
November 30, 2009

Spin or no spin, whether you believe in AGW or not, always remember:

REALITY HAS A PERSISTENT VOICE.

In fifty years, I figure a lot of people are going to go down in history as complete loons.
#198 Kristine
December 1, 2009

“An Inconvenient Truth” will be mocked by future generations as much as “Reefer Madness” is today.

Want a bet? (That usually shuts them up.)

Remember the last dingus who said to Richard Dawkins, “Someday your grandchildren will laugh at you” for saying that the earth is billions of years old? Remember Ted Haggard?

Angry Bob, I suspect that the cacophany to which you refer was produced by only one or two frustrated dingbats with an afternoon to spare because the pants-wearing wife took the childrain to soccer/hockey/splatball in the hummer, then to lunch with girlfriends who all bitch about their husbands.

This whole affair reeks just like Michael Behe’s “I found a wrong statement repeated by a few scien-teests, snarl, snarl, twirl moustache” PowerPoint jig for gullible teeny-boppers. Let the losers have their fun. This shall pass.
#199 RM LaFollette
December 19, 2009

The problems are much worse than you suggest. As I get into their papers and look at their data, the problems are multiple and severe. At this point I do not think any of their temperature work is valid. Their approach has been worse than sophomoric; it is riddled with practices that are absolutely unscientific. Their temperature error analysis is ridiculous. Their temperature ‘corrections’ are completely unsound. Their manipulation of tree-ring data to make the middle age warming period, and the little ice age disappear, is scientifically unjustified and dishonest. Their switching from one data set to another when they do not like the trends, and then not reporting that in the final UN documents, is scientifically fraudulent.
Rather than attack the messenger by calling names, you show more scientific nature if you stick to the message (the data, the science). And when that is done, holes appear in their work big enough to drive a SUV through.
#200 dhogaza
December 20, 2009

Rather than attack the messenger by calling names

Of course, the irony that your post consists entirely of attacks on the scientists who are the messengers is lost on you …

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