Hacked Emails Show Climate Science Ridden with Rancor

pegasus · Nov 22, 2009

The picture that emerges of prominent climate-change scientists from the more than 3,000 documents and emails accessed by hackers and put on the Internet this week is one of professional backbiting and questionable scientific practices. It could undermine the idea that the science of man-made global warming is entirely settled just weeks before a crucial climate-change summit.

Researchers at the Climatic Research Unit at the University of East Anglia, England, were victims of a cyberattack by hackers sometime Thursday. A collection of emails dating back to the mid-1990s as well as scientific documents were splashed across the Internet. University officials confirmed the hacker attack, but couldn't immediately confirm the authenticity of all the documents posted on the Internet.

The publicly posted material includes years of correspondence among leading climate researchers, most of whom participate in the preparation of climate-change reports for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the authoritative summaries of global climate science that influence policy makers around the world.

The release of the documents comes just weeks before a big climate-change summit in Copenhagen, Denmark, meant to lay the groundwork for a new global treaty to curb greenhouse-gas emissions and fight climate change. Momentum for an agreement has been undermined by the economic slump, which has put environmental issues on the back burner in most countries, and by a 10-year cooling trend in global temperatures that runs contrary to many of the dire predictions in climate models such as the IPCC's.

A partial review of the emails shows that in many cases, climate scientists revealed that their own research wasn't always conclusive. In others, they discussed ways to paper over differences among themselves in order to present a "unified" view on climate change. On at least one occasion, climate scientists were asked to "beef up" conclusions about climate change and extreme weather events because environmental officials in one country were planning a "big public splash."

The release of the documents has given ammunition to many skeptics of man-made global warming, who for years have argued that the scientific "consensus" was less robust than the official IPCC summaries indicated and that climate researchers systematically ostracized other scientists who presented findings that differed from orthodox views.

Since the hacking, many Web sites catering to climate skeptics have pored over the material and concluded that it shows a concerted effort to distort climate science. Other Web sites catering to climate scientists have dismissed those claims.

The tension between those two camps is apparent in the emails. More recent messages showed climate scientists were increasingly concerned about blog postings and articles on leading skeptical Web sites. Much of the internal discussion over scientific papers centered on how to pre-empt attacks from prominent skeptics, for example.

Fellow scientists who disagreed with orthodox views on climate change were variously referred to as "prats" and "utter prats." In other exchanges, one climate researcher said he was "very tempted" to "beat the crap out of" a prominent, skeptical U.S. climate scientist.

In several of the emails, climate researchers discussed how to arrange for favorable reviewers for papers they planned to publish in scientific journals. At the same time, climate researchers at times appeared to pressure scientific journals not to publish research by other scientists whose findings they disagreed with.

One email from 1999, titled "CENSORED!!!!!" showed one U.S.-based scientist uncomfortable with such tactics. "As for thinking that it is 'Better that nothing appear, than something unacceptable to us' … as though we are the gatekeepers of all that is acceptable in the world of paleoclimatology seems amazingly arrogant. Science moves forward whether we agree with individual articles or not," the email said.

More recent exchanges centered on requests by independent climate researchers for access to data used by British scientists for some of their papers. The hacked folder is labeled "FOIA," a reference to the Freedom of Information Act requests made by other scientists for access to raw data used to reach conclusions about global temperatures.

Many of the email exchanges discussed ways to decline such requests for information, on the grounds that the data was confidential or was intellectual property. In other email exchanges related to the FOIA requests, some U.K. researchers asked foreign scientists to delete all emails related to their work for the upcoming IPCC summary. In others, they discussed boycotting scientific journals that require them to make their data public.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB125883405294859215.html?mod=googlenews_wsj

tim290280 · Nov 22, 2009

Good to see that people can completely miss the point of their emails.

lifterdead · Nov 22, 2009

The IPCC is full of shit.

tim290280 · Nov 22, 2009

lifterdead said:
The IPCC is full of shit.

Ok I'm sorry but they have presented several decades worth of research dating back from the late 1960's covering a timeline of hundreds of thousands of years. Please present the equivilent rebuttal.

My original point is that scientists are naturally sceptical and enjoy robust debate in order to make any research and findings draw the best conclusions and formulate the best understanding of the data. This is often misinterpretted in the mainstream as arguing against a particular field of research but is actually about strengthening the understanding of the field.

Zigurd · Nov 22, 2009

Nothing new here. There are always amoral people, in every field, place or situation.

pegasus · Nov 23, 2009

Hackers 'expose global warming con': Sceptics claim that leaked emails reveal researc

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/art...esearch-centre-massaged-temperature-data.html

pegasus · Nov 23, 2009

lifterdead said:
The IPCC is full of shit.

pegasus · Nov 23, 2009

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

…

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) [AJStrata: Many of the CRU Temp records show a decline]

…

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 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)

…

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) [AJStrata: Heat generated by concentrations of humanity are not CO2 driven, therefore cannot be contained by limiting CO2. But it also means the temp records are biased, since most thermometers are in and around cities, which means the Earth (e.g., that 75% covered by water) is not heating at all (probably absorbing the heat)]

…

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) [AJStrata: What I am beginning to see in the CRU temp data is that the only way to get the dramatic global warming is to add dodgy proxies (like Yamal Larches) to the data and create man-made global warming (statistically)]

…

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) [AJStrata: A rare but hidden moment of honesty]

pegasus · Nov 23, 2009

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) [AJStrata: showing one's steps is required to validate the results. Deny this validation is not science, it is a con]

…

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)

…

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)

…

Revkin quotes von Storch as saying it is time to toss the Hockey Stick . This back in 2004.(1096382684)

…

Funkhouser says he’s pulled every trick up his sleeve to milk his Kyrgistan series. Doesn’t think it’s productive to juggle the chronology statistics any more than he has.(0843161829)

Wigley discusses fixing an issue with sea surface temperatures in the context of making the results look both warmer but still plausible. (1254108338)

Jones says he and Kevin will keep some papers out of the next IPCC report.(1089318616)[AJStrata: These papers, no doubt, prove the skeptics' case]

pegasus · Nov 23, 2009

Certainly in figure S6, there are some cases with 3 omitted (i.e. some sets of 11) where modern results are comparable with intermittent periods between 800 and 1100. Plus there is the additional uncertainty, discussed on the final page of the supplementary information, associated with linking the proxy records to real temperatures (remember we have no formal calibration, we’re just counting proxies — I’m still amazed that Science agreed to publish something where the main analysis only involves counting from 1 to 14!

…

But this is fine, since the IPCC AR4 and other assessments are not saying the evidence is 100% conclusive (or even 90% conclusive) but just “likely” that modern is warmer than M[edieval] W[arm] P[eriod]

.................................................

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

….

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.***

…

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

MuscleMecca Crew

tim290280 · Nov 23, 2009

Keep going. Only another 30 years of rebuttals to go dude.

Oh and one line or email doesn't refute possibly one of the largest fields of research in modern history.

pegasus · Nov 23, 2009

like they say, it takes a lifetime to build a reputation, and minutes to destroy.

If these were scientist who had the backing of solid data and facts, they wouldn't feel the need to try to prevent any real kind of debate, block off any skeptics or feel the need to "beat the crap out of them".

It might be one of the largest fields of science, nonetheless, it is a big con/lie (IMO)..

"The size of the lie is a definite factor in causing it to be believed, for the vast masses of a nation are in the depths of their hearts more easily deceived than they are consciously and intentionally bad. The primitive simplicity of their minds renders them a more easy prey to a big lie than a small one, for they themselves often tell little lies, but would be ashamed to tell big lies." - Hitler

El Freako · Nov 23, 2009

ARRGGGHHHH CONSPIRACIES EVERYWHERE!!!!111ONEONEONE

:turborun:

mvsf1 · Nov 23, 2009

tim290280 said:
Keep going. Only another 30 years of rebuttals to go dude.

Oh and one line or email doesn't refute possibly one of the largest fields of research in modern history.

Climate changes without human interaction. Those stupid theories (no proofs at all) are just only another bussiness.... *cough* Al Gore *cough*

tim290280 · Nov 23, 2009

pegasus said:
like they say, it takes a lifetime to build a reputation, and minutes to destroy.

If these were scientist who had the backing of solid data and facts, they wouldn't feel the need to try to prevent any real kind of debate, block off any skeptics or feel the need to "beat the crap out of them".

See it from their point of view. You have a generation of solid research that is being ignored by vocal opponents. It is the prevebial arguement with a brick wall: present it with evidence and it just sits there and ignores it. Hit it with a wrecking ball is what you end up feeling like doing and ultimately the only way to achieve anything.

It might be one of the largest fields of science, nonetheless, it is a big con/lie (IMO)..

Not likely. Scientists are naturally the most sceptical people and are more likely to doubt evidence presented by others, not be united by it. Getting thousands of them to agree and research a topic in order to con people is just the most unlikely thing that could ever be proposed.

"The size of the lie is a definite factor in causing it to be believed, for the vast masses of a nation are in the depths of their hearts more easily deceived than they are consciously and intentionally bad. The primitive simplicity of their minds renders them a more easy prey to a big lie than a small one, for they themselves often tell little lies, but would be ashamed to tell big lies." - Hitler

Hey I know lets try and get the most sceptical people in the world to tell a massive extremely complicated lie to everyone on the planet. Not logical or likely. Telling a bunch of little lies is more likely. Seriously: who quotes Hitler?!?! :disgust:

tim290280 · Nov 23, 2009

mvsf1 said:
Climate changes without human interaction. Those stupid theories (no proofs at all) are just only another bussiness.... *cough* Al Gore *cough*

Are you trying to be annoying? The central point of climate change is that what we are seeing is happening and that humans did it. Now if you want to argue about whether humans caused it or not go ahead.

One thing scientists will agree upon is that climate change is happening. Good luck living in a world that has climate change occur in it. Pretty easy example of how fucked we will all be is that when CO2 levels reach something like 500ppm (can't remember the exact figure but it is a level we are predicted to reach by the end of the century with the worst case scenarios from the models) we will have massive declines in plant life. THAT MEANS WE WILL NOT BE ABLE TO GROW ANY FOOD TO SURVIVE.

pegasus · Nov 23, 2009

tim290280 said:
See it from their point of view. You have a generation of solid research that is being ignored by vocal opponents. It is the prevebial arguement with a brick wall: present it with evidence and it just sits there and ignores it. Hit it with a wrecking ball is what you end up feeling like doing and ultimately the only way to achieve anything.

Lets say they're right and there is global warming, there job is present the data, there conclusions and let the masses decide which side they want to take. Calling the other side a brick wall etc isn't a part of scientific debate. You might say you have such and such data (the validity of which is to be seriously questioned now more than ever, after the apparent tampering with data), the other side also has question which the global warming advocates can't answer, one being; why has the earth been cooling down for the past 10 or so years? this point was also raised in one of the internal emails.

Not likely. Scientists are naturally the most sceptical people and are more likely to doubt evidence presented by others, not be united by it. Getting thousands of them to agree and research a topic in order to con people is just the most unlikely thing that could ever be proposed.

Scientist also like to make money, and then they see a trend some will decide to jump on it. After all they know that some of the so called green taxes will go on to fund there research and labs. Being a scientist doesn't mean that you don't do immoral things i.e. back something you know isn't really true, knowing fair well that if the truth did come out someday they can just blame some data source and say they were also deceived, since I don't think all of the scientist on this field go out to the north pole to do tests, or try to validate all the data they have. Most have accepted it and are busy trying to come up with so called solutions, and new technologies.

Hey I know lets try and get the most sceptical people in the world to tell a massive extremely complicated lie to everyone on the planet. Not logical or likely. Telling a bunch of little lies is more likely. Seriously: who quotes Hitler?!?!

Click to expand...

I never said they were able to fool everyone, but a vast majority of people. And the lie isn't that complicated really, they compare todays climate with what they have on record for the past 60 or so years and make silly connections between the changes (or in this case alter data to show changes), then make forecasts which are based on flowed models.

"You may fool all of the people some of the time, you can even fool some of the people all of the time, but you can’t fool all of the people all of the time." - Abraham Lincoln

Hitler was a smart man in many ways.. the quote does not go to show my support for his actions etc, its just a fact of life. But why question the source of the quote? is the logic wrong!? Anyways I hope Lincoln isn't on the "silly quote source list" lol

mvsf1 · Nov 23, 2009

tim290280 said:
Are you trying to be annoying? The central point of climate change is that what we are seeing is happening and that humans did it. Now if you want to argue about whether humans caused it or not go ahead.

One thing scientists will agree upon is that climate change is happening. Good luck living in a world that has climate change occur in it. Pretty easy example of how fucked we will all be is that when CO2 levels reach something like 500ppm (can't remember the exact figure but it is a level we are predicted to reach by the end of the century with the worst case scenarios from the models) we will have massive declines in plant life. THAT MEANS WE WILL NOT BE ABLE TO GROW ANY FOOD TO SURVIVE.

Have you heard about all the data most "scientists" that support climate change manipulated?

Have you heard about glaciations and Middle Ages hot period? Human interaction in there? :bitelip:

Climate change is a bussiness, like H1N1...

Rageking · Nov 23, 2009

There has been constant climate change for the billions of years the earth has been around

tim290280 · Nov 23, 2009

I don't really want to get drawn into this topic as it is clear that I would have to actually bring people up to speed with too much information. This is clearly a waste of time on my part as apparently you are in denial, and probably not clear on the science.

pegasus said:
Lets say they're right and there is global warming, there job is present the data, there conclusions and let the masses decide which side they want to take.

They have been presenting the data for decades. One of the first to publically raise it as an issue did so in the early 1970's. When did anyone actually start looking and listening to the data, 25yrs later....... The masses are still largely ignorant after 3 decades. This isn't about "sides", science is about right and wrong.

pegasus said:
Calling the other side a brick wall etc isn't a part of scientific debate. You might say you have such and such data (the validity of which is to be seriously questioned now more than ever, after the apparent tampering with data), the other side also has question which the global warming advocates can't answer, one being; why has the earth been cooling down for the past 10 or so years? this point was also raised in one of the internal emails.

They aren't questioning the validity of the data. This is quite simply an appeal to ignorance. Your last "question" proves this. The climate hasn't cooled in the past 10yrs, that wasn't even real data, the climate has gotten warmer.

pegasus said:
Scientist also like to make money, and then they see a trend some will decide to jump on it. After all they know that some of the so called green taxes will go on to fund there research and labs.

We are some of the most poorly paid professionals, given our level of education. Scientists do like to get paid and have research projects, but they aren't just doctoring their results to get funding (any who have are found out pretty quickly through the peer review process and are shunned).

Also this is a non-sequitur point. This has not been a popular field of research until very recently. The evidence for this has been gathered for decades. The people researching this weren't getting paid to say climate change was happening, if anything it would have been the opposite.

pegasus said:
Being a scientist doesn't mean that you don't do immoral things i.e. back something you know isn't really true, knowing fair well that if the truth did come out someday they can just blame some data source and say they were also deceived, since I don't think all of the scientist on this field go out to the north pole to do tests, or try to validate all the data they have. Most have accepted it and are busy trying to come up with so called solutions, and new technologies.

So a handful of people have made up 1,000,000's of man hours of research to decieve the rest of the scientist so that they "jump on board". Did that seriously make sense to you? Peer review, sceptical nature, and professional debate are the cornerstones of science. I won't defend every field of science, but this is multidisciplinary and as such you are saying that essentially no-one has taken any measurements.

pegasus said:
I never said they were able to fool everyone, but a vast majority of people. And the lie isn't that complicated really, they compare todays climate with what they have on record for the past 60 or so years and make silly connections between the changes (or in this case alter data to show changes), then make forecasts which are based on flowed models.

You are showing nothing but ignorance for the topic here. Please go and read some of the journal articles in climate research and related fields.

pegasus said:
"You may fool all of the people some of the time, you can even fool some of the people all of the time, but you can’t fool all of the people all of the time." - Abraham Lincoln

This is hardly relevant.

pegasus said:
Hitler was a smart man in many ways.. the quote does not go to show my support for his actions etc, its just a fact of life. But why question the source of the quote? is the logic wrong!? Anyways I hope Lincoln isn't on the "silly quote source list" lol

You were trying to draw a parallel between research science and disception using one of the most notorious figures of the 20th centuary: this is subversive. I could use the same material as a linkage to the anti-climate change adherants.

msvf1 said:
Have you heard about all the data most "scientists" that support climate change manipulated?

This shows a massive ignorance for the scientific process.

msvf1 said:
Have you heard about glaciations and Middle Ages hot period? Human interaction in there?

Yes I have and you clearly don't understand the magnitude of the current period.

msvf1 said:
Climate change is a bussiness, like H1N1...

No it isn't. As I have previously explained, this field existed long before it was trendy or there was funding for it.

I will state one point that runs counter to my previous points. I have personally met with members of the IPCC panel and heard them speak at conferences. I was not impressed with the politics involved and the manner in which they were essentially marketing climate change rather than speaking about the facts. It should be noted though that the speakers who followed these guys actually not only corrected these speakers but made them look stupid. They then went on to present their data on the impacts of climate change.

Hacked Emails Show Climate Science Ridden with Rancor

pegasus

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