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Climatic Research Unit Hacked, Files Leaked
huckamania was one of many readers to write with the news that the University of East Anglia's Hadley Climatic Research Unit was hacked, and internal documents released. Some discussion and analysis of the leaked items can be found at Watts Up With That. The CRU has confirmed that a breach occurred, but not that all 61 MB of released material is genuine. Some of the emails would seem to raise concerns about the science as practiced — or at least beg an explanation. From the Watts Up link: "[The CRU] is widely recognized as one of the world's leading institutions concerned with the study of natural and anthropogenic climate change. Consisting of a staff of around thirty research scientists and students, the Unit has developed a number of the data sets widely used in climate research, including the global temperature record used to monitor the state of the climate system, as well as statistical software packages and climate models. An unknown person put postings on some climate skeptic websites that advertised an FTP file on a Russian FTP server. Here is the message that was placed on the Air Vent today: 'We feel that climate science is, in the current situation, too important to be kept under wraps. We hereby release a random selection of correspondence, code, and documents.' The file was large, about 61 megabytes, containing hundreds of files. It contained data, code, and emails apparently from the CRU. If proved legitimate, these bombshells could spell trouble for the AGW crowd." Reader brandaman supplied the link to the archive of pilfered data. Reader aretae characterized the emails as revealing "...lots of intrigue, data manipulation, attempting to shut out opposing points of view out of scientific journals. Almost makes you think it's a religion. Anyone surprised?" And reader bugnuts adds, for context: "These emails are certainly taken out of context, whether they are legitimate or fraudulent, which adds to the confusion."
Conspirasy!!! They actually probably leaked it themselves to spread conflicting data about the environment. They don't want people to know that as soon as the glaciers and polar ice caps melt aliens will invade the earth, they are just waiting for a shift in temperature. I for one, welcome our tropical overlords!
I am not a nerd, I just play one in real life. My avatar thinks I'm a total loser.
And with this, liberals have a hard time soaking the rich and increases taxes on everyone in the world in order to create more government.
There is zero evidence for "global warming", or "global climate change" or whatever other bullshit term you nutjobs come up with.
You dipshits can't even come up with a simple, formal scientific theory.
Here's a fucking hint: Man has an infinitesimal degree of influence over the planet's climate.
Actually I read the email, and no, there was no conjecture around it.
He actually manipulated the data to "hide the decline".
The only question is why did he choose the words "hide" as opposed to "correct" and "decline" as opposed to "error" which the skeptics (of this breach) are trying to imply, that "hide the decline" has the same meaning as "correct the error". I would argue to everyone, that the word hide implies falsification or concealment. So the author was knowingly manipulatin data to conceal the truth. Where the truth is some statistic that indicates there has been a lowering of the trend.
Slashdot's rate-of-post filter: Preventing you from posting too many great ideas at once.
There are very very powerful entities with vested interests in discrediting the well established evidence of climate change(cigs, cancer, and the tobacco institute anyone?).
Whether it's anthropogenic or not is besides the point, its important to err on the side of caution -- which means probable regulation -- something vested international conglomerates see as unprofitable/risky.
61 megs can be easily generated by a small staff interested in discrediting the conclusions of a debate which has long been over.
There's no coincidence about this at all, with cap and trade floating about washington. Just like the insurance lobbies with health reform, the worst polluters are pulling out all the stops to avoid being held responsible.
VLC FOR MAC IS DYING! IF YOU DEVELOP, PLEASE SAVE IT!!
I would think that you of all people should be grateful to get perspective wherever you might find it.
It's amusing when people claim that there's huge profits to be made from exposing the danger of greenhouse emissions. Somehow, they claim, there are hundreds of billions of dollars floating out in the ether to pay climate scientists whose research suggests that it might not be a good idea to continue the increase in pollution. Yet, when some coal-industry funded think tank puts out a paper saying that global warming is going to turn the earth into a regular Garden of Eden, it is waved in our faces as proof-positive that climate change is a fraud, and anyone who suggests that it might be biased is accused of taking money from the group of evil billionaires who are funding climate science.
There are two sides to this issue. One wants to continue the status quo no matter what the risk because there's money to be made and the other thinks there's a better way to do things, and if we don't find a better way, it's going to suck for future generations.
I only wish there really was a financial incentive to changing over to a ecologically sensible energy model. Unfortunately, unless there is some serious innovation, it's going to be a hardship in the short run. We could have been working on this problem since the 1970's, but a certain president (who also happened to be a member of the Screen Actors' Guild) was too busy tearing the solar panels off the roof of the White House to bother thinking about it. Well, he showed them didn't he? Gasoline now costs over three bucks a gallon in the US, there's drought in places that didn't have drought before and we are financially beholden to countries that have oil but want to kill us. And now, we are told, if we just trust that "coal is really clean" and if we just give public lands to the oil companies, everything will be fine forever and nobody will get hurt. And useful idiots are crowing about how climate change is the scam.
The agenda of the political right is to create a bizarro world where the entire news media is lying (except theirs), science is bogus, guns make people safer, cigarettes are healthy, wars are good for you, torture makes us a better nation, quitting a job shows integrity, and climate scientists are being paid off by...somebody. In other words, reality is a lie, , so only believe what we tell you, because God wants it that way.
If you want to buy that, be my guest, but please get out the way.
You are welcome on my lawn.
Believe it or not (I know you won't) but not everyone who disagrees with you is on some big oil company's payroll
Of course not: many are "auditioning" before they actually get a paid position. :-)
The only question is why did he choose the words "hide" as opposed to "correct" and "decline" as opposed to "error" which the skeptics (of this breach) are trying to imply, that "hide the decline" has the same meaning as "correct the error". I would argue to everyone, that the word hide implies falsification or concealment. So the author was knowingly manipulatin data to conceal the truth. Where the truth is some statistic that indicates there has been a lowering of the trend.
Oh please. Like in your private emails and informal talks with your colleagues are super precise with your words. Next you'll be telling me that when you said, "Jim fucked the code," you literally meant that Jim printed up the code, drilled a whole in the middle of the stack papers, and proceeded to penetrate it with his penis, or that when you said that "the server blew up," you literally meant that the computer experienced a Baysplosion.
Why didn't he use "error" instead of "decline?" Easy. He knows what the error is. The error goes down ("declines").
You're trying to hold on to your preconceived notion of some sort of grand conspiracy in spite of the evidence to the contrary.
You do realize that some of the emails are about hiding data from public view, obstructing freedom of information requests, and campaign to discredit a peer reviewed journal that published something that disagreed with their public stance, right?
You realize the previous administration did all that and more in the run-up to the invasion of Iraq, and it drew far less criticism than this?
Americans don't deserve a free, open, democratic republic, nor do they want one. They want more than anything else to fall to their knees at the feet of authority, miracle and mystery. The American experiment has failed, and everyone is doing everything they can to cover up that fact, or to avoid having to admit it.
Edith Keeler Must Die
The reason this thread is so quiet is all the AGW faithful know their cover is BLOWN. Forget it your bogus faith is DEAD.
Huh wut?
I submitted the article to /. myself, and I believe the science supports AGW, by far. I'm certainly not remaining quiet. There's not really any fear. Exposing something like this can only strengthen the science behind it... and if it's all shown to be some big conspiracy, then I'll change my viewpoint the same way I initially formed it: based on science. The anti-AGW group has their opinions based on ... their opinions and what they think it might cost them. It has nothing to do with current science. That's a religion if I ever heard one.
The interest to /. is the risks to email, and how it's politically damning. Right now, all the anti-AGW groups are frantically deleting all their emails and backups, and shredding documents to prevent it from happening back.
If they were engaging in illegal activities, they should be subjected to appropriate punishments. If they weren't, they still will lose money as this political black-eye will haunt the involved scientists with lack of grants.
"These are TRULY damning! If you can explain how decades of data are skipped to "smooth" results, how "averaging" is determined in other areas... I am not qualified to comment on this research but I can certainly look at code. I smell a rat here."
I take it that you never have had to use real world data that varies widely in quality in a real world project? Welcome to the geological sciences.
Data is never perfect. If the data is perfect, then the data was probably faked. If you feed bad data into the model, you get bad results. Also known as GIGO (Garbage In, Garbage Out). So any competant modeler will fix the data as best they can. Throw out obvious outliers. Smooth sampling artifacts. Trade precision for accuracy. Artificially constrain data. Etc. The key is to note what you did and why. And keep the original data. But in any project of any size the data files aren't going to be pretty. Just like a program, it's the results, not the code, that count.
Apparently reading comprehension isn't your strong suit. Science is messy, and when we find out we're wrong - or that it's been purposefully faked - you know, no longer real science - then you best stop listening to it, get yourself squared away, and start again.
Apparently facts and science aren't your strong suit. A few emails taken out of context doesn't invalidate climate science.
Pro-AGW or anti-AGW shouldn't matter; fraud and lies should be denounced and rejected within science as strongly as possible
That's correct. Perhaps you could identify some of the "fraud and lies," because there's been no serious evidence of this presented thus far.
... and then they built the supercollider.
1: I am a scientist.
2: According to the global warming nutjobs, there is a "global consensus among scientists" that global warming is going to kill the planet.
3: Even if we entered an ice age tomorrow, humans would survive. Humans are resourceful, adaptive critters. The vast majority of them have reverted mentally and physically, but some would survive. Hell, I would welcome the culling.
4: Nope. Nothing we can do to stop it. The best shot we've got to mitigate it is to put up space mirrors. Every attempt (I think we've had 3 major attempts) has failed. There are no current plans to put up space mirrors. This is because it's expensive, doesn't generate money or power (the political kind) and could actually work - thus limiting the "need" to impose taxes, fines, and regulations.
countries having to "pay" to some "World Fund" for their carbon emissions. The establishment of this fund and the redistribution of wealth from rich countries to poor countries via environmental guilt it the being of the One World Government
Yeah, it it such an evil thing to for once give poor countries something back for raping their country, draining it of resources, and leaving behind a polluted wasteland. Way to go.
Better take more from the poor countries, and give it to the rich ones, right?
Boy does it shine trough that you're in the pockets of big energy!
Any sufficiently advanced intelligence is indistinguishable from stupidity.
1. Mann providing access to his data is irrelevant. Everyone is free to gather the same data themselves. In fact, if one were truly afraid of some wort of bias by Mann's data gathering, then that is the only responsible thing to do.
2. The problem with the 1998 work wasn't with the data collection, it was the statistical analysis of the presented data (i.e. math). Fact: If you bothered to do any research about this, you would have known this.