UPDATE # 6: An elegant analysis from Rand Simberg who is an engineer.
UPDATE # 5: Another excellent analysis of the whole data dump and what it means. I especially like this summary:
The emails are in fact uncharacteristic of typical scientific email correspondence because they include:
(1) requests to delete data to avoid Freedom of Information Act requests;
(2) requests to delete all copy of emails for secrecy;
(3) colluding with other supposedly anonymous reviewers in order to reject particular scientific papers;
(4) attempting to ban critics from any peer-reviewed journals by, for example, successfully getting them fired from editorial positions;
(5) participation and publication of patently absurd graphs and theories, e.g. using selected tree rings as some kind global temperature proxy and using that to justify restructuring the global economy; or publishing theories and demanding action based on data that they would not release; and finally
(6) collusion in the public animosity and hysteria directed against individuals and institutions who felt there was insufficient evidence of global warming and its causes to justify remedial action (e.g., calling skeptics “deniers” or “akin to war criminals” or comparing them to flat-earth advocates).
All these taken together are clear evidence that the actions of the scientists involved are well outside the mainstream of scientific behavior.
UPDATE # 5: More analysis of e-mails here. This is not good for Al Gore.
UPDATE #4: Some analysis of the data so far from Powerline.
As far as I can tell from the email archive, Briffa never did respond to the plant scientist. Jones’s email warning Briffa to be “very wary about responding to this person now having seen what McIntyre has put up” was written just three weeks ago. It, along with the rest of the email archive, makes an utter mockery of the alarmists’ claim that the science of global warming is settled in their favor.
On the contrary, the conclusion an observer is likely to draw from the CRU archive is that the climate alarmists are making up the science as they go along and are fitting facts to reach a predetermined conclusion rather than objectively seeking after truth. What they are doing is politics, not science. When I was in law school, this story was told about accountants: A CEO is going to hire a new accountant and summons a series of candidates. He asks each applicant, “What is two plus two?” The first two candidates answer, “Four.” They don’t get the job. The third responds, “What do you want it to be?” He gets hired. The climate alarmists’ attitude toward data appears to me much the same as that fictional accountant’s attitude toward arithmetic.
This is far from over.
UPDATE #3: more and more on the fraud which will be hard for failed divinity student Gore to refute. This is really going to be a fiasco.
UPDATE #2: Even the NY Times is covering the story which means the story is really big ! Some are even talking about a hoax!
If you own any shares in alternative energy companies I should start dumping them NOW. The conspiracy behind the Anthropogenic Global Warming myth (aka AGW; aka ManBearPig) has been suddenly, brutally and quite deliciously exposed after a hacker broke into the computers at the University of East Anglia’s Climate Research Unit (aka Hadley CRU) and released 61 megabites of confidential files onto the internet. (Hat tip: Watts Up With That)
When you read some of those files – including 1079 emails and 72 documents – you realise just why the boffins at Hadley CRU might have preferred to keep them confidential. As Andrew Bolt puts it, this scandal could well be “the greatest in modern science”. These alleged emails – supposedly exchanged by some of the most prominent scientists pushing AGW theory – suggest:
Conspiracy, collusion in exaggerating warming data, possibly illegal destruction of embarrassing information, organised resistance to disclosure, manipulation of data, private admissions of flaws in their public claims and much more.
Wow !
UPDATE: The BBC is after the hacker, intent on stamping out this sort of crime, no doubt.
A hacker seems to have gotten into the UK climate research unit database, including e-mails, and spread the files all over the internet. This will create a sensation in climate circles and some of the blogs have volume too high to keep up with. The news is already all over the world, at least the world of climate interest.
The director of Britain’s leading Climate Research Unit, Phil Jones, has told Investigate magazine’s TGIF Edition tonight …”It was a hacker. We were aware of this about three or four days ago that someone had hacked into our system and taken and copied loads of data files and emails.”…
TGIF asked Jones about the controversial email discussing “hiding the decline”, and Jones explained what he was trying to say….
The full e-mail is now posted:
From: Phil Jones
To: ray bradley ,mann@XXXX, mhughes@XXXX
Subject: Diagram for WMO Statement
Date: Tue, 16 Nov 1999 13:31:15 +0000
Cc: k.briffa@XXX.osborn@XXXX
Dear Ray, Mike and Malcolm,
Once Tim’s got a diagram here we’ll send that either later today or first thing tomorrow.
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) amd from 1961 for Keith’s to hide the decline. Mike’s series got the annual land and marine values while the other two got April-Sept for NH land N of 20N. The latter two are real for 1999, while the estimate for 1999 for NH combined is +0.44C wrt 61-90. The Global estimate for 1999 with data through Oct is +0.35C cf. 0.57 for 1998.
Thanks for the comments, Ray.
Cheers
Phil
Prof. Phil Jones
Climatic Research Unit Telephone XXXX
School of Environmental Sciences Fax XXXX
University of East Anglia
Norwich
Whoooops !!!
It may be an innocent explanation is coming but this is the most aggressive source for global warming agitation. In fact, a jury has acquitted Greenpeace activists in Britain for damaging a power plant in the interest of reducing CO2 emissions. I expect the hacker, if he is caught, might not be treated as generously.
From: Kevin Trenberth
To: Michael Mann
Subject: Re: BBC U-turn on climate
Date: Mon, 12 Oct 2009 08:57:37 -0600
Cc: Stephen H Schneider , Myles Allen , peter stott , “Philip D. Jones” , Benjamin Santer , Tom Wigley , Thomas R Karl , Gavin Schmidt , James Hansen , Michael Oppenheimer
Hi all
Well I have my own article on where the heck is global warming ? We are asking that here in Boulder where we have broken records the past two days for the coldest days on record. We had 4 inches of snow. The high the last 2 days was below 30F and the normal is 69F, and it smashed the previous records for these days by 10F. The low was about 18F and also a record low, well below the previous record low.
This is January weather (see the Rockies baseball playoff game was canceled on saturday and then played last night in below freezing weather).
Trenberth, K. E., 2009: An imperative for climate change planning: tracking Earth’s global energy. Current Opinion in Environmental Sustainability, 1, 19-27, doi:10.1016/j.cosust.2009.06.001. [1][PDF] (A PDF of the published version can be obtained from the author.)
***
The fact is that we can’t account for the lack of warming at the moment and it is a travesty that we can’t. The CERES data published in the August BAMS 09 supplement on 2008 shows there should be even more warming: but the data are surely wrong. Our observing system is inadequate.***
Is it a conspiracy ? Some people think so. Well, this should get the pot boiling.
Tags: economics
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Wow.
I’d say “UNBELIEVABLE,” but the sad thing is… this comes as no shock.
BILL
Dang, I’ve been looking all over for one the email saying, who cares if the signers to that petition or accord or whatever have PhD’s, no one will care. Have you seen it doc? I downloaded these things but lord there are sooo many..
That sounds like the discussion about the IPCC Director who was described as “Doctor” in the documents but that was quickly changed when it turned out he didn’t have a PhD in anything, let alone climate science. I thought I had a post on it but a search doesn’t show it.
I think I found it. Was that what you were looking for ?
Yes I remember that. And this week someone dug up an email from the CRU leak where someone says in effect “no one will notice, just get their signatures..” now I can’t find where I ran across that.