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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."
The CRU has confirmed that a breach occurred, but not that all 61 MB of released material is genuine.
Rarely do I have enough time to generate 61 MB (let alone 61 compressed MB) of data, code and e-mails that serves my political/religious purposes. So if this is tampered data or correspondence, there would almost certainly be conflicting items inside such a large repository. I'm not saying it isn't possible, it just decreases the odds that this is a hoax.
'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'
Why? Why a random sampling? If you're going to serve up 61 MB zipped, it might as well be 61 GB zipped. Why not release both sets ("the good stuff.tar.gz" and "everything including the inane 'what's for lunch today?' e-mails.tar.gz")?
It's borderline hilarious that the claim is made that this is 'too important to be kept under wraps' followed immediately by the 'we'll decide what you see' cloaked by the equally hilarious word "random." Random? Really? You want me to believe that you printed everything out and put it on a big spinning wheel, blindfolded yourself and then threw darts at it? I mean, come on. Nothing in the political world is random. You would have done yourself much more justice saying you've released what you feel is relevant.
Being one, I know first hand that hackers are highly disorganized. But come on, why not torrent the whole set or wikileaks it or something? I mean, I'm almost waiting for a high quality Ford Fusion ad in PDF to surface right in the middle of the compressed file saying, "Doesn't this worry you enough to go green?"
My work here is dung.
Reading random chunks of leaked data and E-mail is not the way science is done, nor policy made.
Let's see ALL the data, and let's not see the E-mail at all -- E-mail isn't data.
Otherwise, STFU, this isn't helping anything.
I piss off bigots.
Since some of the emails are sent from them, it's worth reading.
Link
For the specifics read the whole article. For a general summary, this excerpt will do:
"Since emails are normally intended to be private, people writing them are, shall we say, somewhat freer in expressing themselves than they would in a public statement. For instance, we are sure it comes as no shock to know that many scientists do not hold Steve McIntyre in high regard. Nor that a large group of them thought that the Soon and Baliunas (2003), Douglass et al (2008) or McClean et al (2009) papers were not very good (to say the least) and should not have been published. These sentiments have been made abundantly clear in the literature (though possibly less bluntly).
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."
"99 dead duelists of Dios on the wall. 99 dead duelists of Dios! Take one's ring, pass it around..."
MIT climatologist Richard Lindzen has long made these claims about global warming researchers, as he discusses in a talk from a few weeks ago: "Cooler Heads". It looks like he's slowly being vindicated in his views of both the researchers and the conclusions.
From HARRY_READ_ME.txt, one of the leaked files.
...This could be a result of my mis-setting of the parameters on Tim's
programs (although I have followed his recommendations wherever
possible), or it could be a result of Tim using the Beowulf 1
cluster for the f90 work. Beowulf 1 is now integrated in to the
latest Beowulf cluster so it may not be practical to test that
theory.
are the new CO2 emissions files, in particular, what each country emits. Everybody has it up until 2006, but after that, it stops. Why? After 2006 is important information. For starters, a number of western countries have dropped emissions (particularly, America), while others have increased greatly (Canada, Australia, South Korea). The real issue that I would like to see is what BRIC (Brazil, Russia, India, and China), along with Mexico, Venezuela, Iran, etc have done.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
Is this the same CRU that when asked to release the original raw data used in its climate analysis claimed it had all been lost?
http://rogerpielkejr.blogspot.com/2009/08/we-lost-original-data.html
"The average reporter we talk to is 27 years old......They literally know nothing." - Ben Rhodes
I'm sure Anthony Watts and Steve McIntyre are just about to release their own personal e-mail histories as well.
Build a man a fire, he's warm for one night. Set him on fire, and he's warm for the rest of his life.
Many people who doubted AGW (humans causing the hockey stick graph, or the graph itself) are claiming this is some sort of smoking gun. I claim it's scientists being scientists, and failing at being politicians.
The very fact that this reveals some scientists are doubting some results is exactly what should happen in science. This is why there is a consensus among scientists. Doubting is a part of science and skeptics alike, but discovering the reasons for the doubt and changing a viewpoint when good, conflicting data are found are hallmarks of the scientist. Skeptics will cling to disproved data, hoping it somehow becomes true if they believe it hard enough.
There is no doubt that the earth is warmer, but mark my words: some idiot media personality will make claims to the contrary due to this. They thrive on confusion, and there's nothing more confusing (and humorous) than watching scientists wrestle with politics.
The bar for skeptics is always going to be higher. Otherwise we'd have to rewrite the chemistry textbooks every time some student messes up his lab assignment, because this will produce data that contradicts the theory.
Yup, Earth's climate has been changing for billions of years and will continue to do so. What Earth hasn't been doing for billions of years is supporting a single species who's civilization utterly depends on stable crop yields, stable weather patterns, and a stable climate. If humans go ahead and alter atmospheric chemistry enough to reduce rainfall and crop yields by 20% across several major agricultural regions, the Earth will be just fine with that. The atmosphere and climate have been changing for millenia. You know who won't be fine with it though?
Us.
As a species humans already appropriate well over half the productive ecological capacity on this planet (estimates I've seen range to as high as 90%), so anything we do to appreciably diminish that ecological capacity will hit one species particularly hard.
Us.
Earth, however, will soldier on, whether with a human population of around 10 billion, a dramatically reduced human population, or no human population at all.
If libertarians are so opposed to effective government, why don't they all move to Somalia?
The primary issue is that most climate science has not truly been scrutinize and reviewed. I've been reading the files and it's very damming. It's almost as bad as cold fusion. For example. In note 1075403821.txt Timo Hmeranta states.
One other thing about the CC paper - just found another email - is that McKittrick says it is standard practice in Econometrics journals to give all the data and codes !! According to legal advice IPR overrides this.
So they are going to hide behind Intelectual Property Rights to keep their data from being reviewed!. Holy Fucking Shit! How can science do that and still remain respectable?
It all starts at 0
[...header information omitted...]
Subject: Re: ATTENTION. Invitation to influence Kyoto.
Date: Tue, 25 Nov 1997 11:52:09 -0700 (MST)
Dear Eleven,
I was very disturbed by your recent letter, and your attempt to get
others to endorse it. Not only do I disagree with the content of
this letter, but I also believe that you have severely distorted the
IPCC "view" when you say that "the latest IPCC assessment makes a
convincing economic case for immediate control of emissions." In contrast
to the one-sided opinion expressed in your letter, IPCC WGIII SAR and TP3
review the literature and the issues in a balanced way presenting
arguments in support of both "immediate control" and the spectrum of more
cost-effective options. It is not IPCC's role to make "convincing cases"
for any particular policy option; nor does it. However, most IPCC readers
would draw the conclusion that the balance of economic evidence favors the
emissions trajectories given in the WRE paper. This is contrary to your
statement.
This is a complex issue, and your misrepresentation of it does you a
dis-service. To someone like me, who knows the science, it is
apparent that you are presenting a personal view, not an informed,
balanced scientific assessment. What is unfortunate is that this will not
be apparent to the vast majority of scientists you have contacted. In
issues like this, scientists have an added responsibility to keep their
personal views separate from the science, and to make it clear to others
when they diverge from the objectivity they (hopefully) adhere to in their
scientific research. I think you have failed to do this.
[...]
FATMOUSE + YOU = FATMOUSE
You sound like you're arguing from information given to you by Al Gore. I'm not sure he's a trustworth source.
Since I think the Polar Bear thing is particularly funny (I think a lot of teen girls think they are so cute, in spite of the fact that they are apparently some of the most aggressive and violent bears), this is certainly not Fox News. nor are these folks. But with proof like simply SEEING them so far off shore and presuming global warming is the reason, it's so obvious that any criticism must be wrong! I guess since the food that Polar Bears eat - like seals - are remaining completely stationary while the snow/ice presumably recedes. I've seen reports that polar bears can swim anywhere from 60 to 100s of miles, so apparently they aren't completely sure.
To me, the Polar Bear thing is a good example of someone seeing something and it getting blown completely out of proportion and people like Al Gore picking up on it and trying to use it for their own gain. Al Gore does not appear to be struggling financially.
Incidentally, from here:
Gore shows an animation of a polar bear (very reminiscent of the Coca Cola bears) swimming pitifully in the sea trying to haul itself up onto the last piece of ice floating in the Arctic Ocean. In 2002, the World Wildlife Fund issued a report warning that global warming was endangering polar bears. Arctic sea ice is thawing sooner and this means that the bears who hunt seals on the ice have fewer opportunities to feed themselves. This week saw an alarming report that hungry polar bears are turning cannibal. Yet, the WWF report itself found that most bear populations are either stable or increasing (see page 9 of the report). And remember, polar bears evidently survived when Arctic temperatures were warmer 6000 years ago. Of course, if predictions that the entire Arctic Ocean will be ice free in 100 year turn out to be right, then the polar bears will have a problem.
(emphasis mine)
That "ice free" bit was a link to "sciencedaily.com."
Hm. Who did An Inconvenient Truth again? Who is pushing for "climate change" legislation? The hype and sensationalism is the fault of conservatives?
isn't that these files and this correspondence got hacked.
The shame of it is that hacking was necessary at all.
Transparency, People. We're debating public policy and making decisions for the benefit of all Mankind. Credibility is only hindered by opacity and closed data.
Welcome to the Panopticon. Used to be a prison, now it's your home.
You mean soaking the middle class.
The rich will stay rich because they will be collecting transaction fees from the climate exchanges as well as tax credits for green buisnesses.
The poor will be taken care of via transfer payments.
The middle class will pay for all of it.
There was a documentary about climate change hoax on Finnish YLE channel (it's like BBC of Finland) couple of weeks ago. It basically told that the climate data collected from Finland was turned upside down so that it would show warming instead of cooling etc. People who understand Finnish can check it out from Youtube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1gmJiZfyDPE People who don't understand Finnish can just check these few seconds where they show how they flipped Finnish data: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=suySkDny-zk#t=7m00s
They go as far as telling others to delete information that (I reckon) could be incriminating.
"
> 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!!"
CA is the principal "climate sceptic" website.
Of course, much effort is also dedicated to avoiding Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests.
"PS I’m getting hassled by a couple of people to release the CRU station temperature data.
Don’t any of you three tell anybody that the UK has a Freedom of Information Act !"
And so on.
Of course, they also find time to gloat of the death of "sceptics", etc. etc. All classy stuff.
"Science" indeed.
...but the data deletion conspiracies, the conspiring to disrupt the peer review process in various clever ways, the knowing avoidance of Freedom of Information Act Requests, the slurs against "sceptics", including celebrating their deaths, and so on.
And that's just from the emails I have read so far.
"Doubting" indeed. And these assholes have had the nerve to indignantly drape themselves in the flag of science.
Well, I think the big thing that this data-dump shows is that it's actually a small group of tightly knit e-mail connected individuals that are driving a whole lot of the AGW effort.
Someone else wrote that this is all Exxon Astroturfing going on to make us knock out Copenhagen. In other words, arguing that a global conspiracy of oil-company funded individuals, like a meterologist in California and a retired statistician are all on payroll along with hackers in Russia, and new posters on SlashDot, are all working to convince us of a global conspiracy to promote AGW... These people are somehow secretly communicating behind the scenes, transferring billions of dollars of off-the-books money to individuals, all without anyone being able to point to a money trail.
On the other side, we have three groups, CRU, Mann/RealClimate and GISS, who have been clearly communicating and using their supposedly "neutral" Web Site (RealClimate) to promote one-sided views of the science, and apparently "fudge" the data until it matches their theory. These people openly receive grants of hundreds of millions of dollars every year, and have access to governments, prime ministers, and corporations, all of whose funding depends on perpetuating and establishing AGW as *the* science.
So, you'd have to believe it was all a big plan to release data on a minor Russian FTP site, found by accident on a blog almost no one reads, and then forwarded to a blog that *is* read often, in an un-threaded discussion while the site owner is on a trip overseas. This well coordinated group then uses these actual emails (admitted as valid and real by Phil Jones, head of CRU) to somehow concoct a story that a small group of climate scientists are colluding to support a theory by ignoring the facts, by using their own words to that effect.
On the one hand, you have individuals scanning through, admittedly, purloined emails and saying, "Whoa! What's going on here." Opposite that, you have the post on RealClimate today saying, "Move along, nothing to see here!" Some of those emails involve apparent schemes to transfer US funds overseas to avoid taxation. That alone is "something to see," despite what RealClimate is saying. And that's ignoring whether the science was done according to any standards of ethics.
We're talking millions of dollars in budgets from publicly funded programs. If there's even a hint of malfeasance in these documents, then a serious investigation should be started. I don't care which side is the global conspiracy. Only one side is spending *my money* to perpetrate it. The oil companies can spend however many trillion dollars they want without it coming out of *my* pocket.
Life, the Universe, and Everything... in my image.
Theory 3, the Earth warms, the heat is radiated back out into space. The warmer it gets, the more heat is radiated back into space. Some evidence, for example Lindzen and Choi, for low climate sensitivity:
Another good writeup on the leaked emails can be found here. Summary: manipulation of evidence, private doubts about whether the world really is heating up, suppression of evidence, fantasies of violence against prominent Climate Sceptic scientists, attempts to disguise the inconvenient truth of the Medieval Warm Period , and communications discussing how best to squeeze dissenting scientists out of the peer review process.
I feel really bad for these researchers.
I have published only a few papers and would be mortified if my emails got released to the public. I am constantly joking around with other lab denizens about fudging stuff, and removing data that doesn't fit the expectations. The opportunity for out of context quotations is scary to contemplate. Not to mention all of the politically incorrect jokes about such-and-such a graph's sexual orientation.
If one of these guys said anything like that over the years of emails in this dump, they are in some deep shit for nothing. Image someone going through all of the comments for all of the code you have ever written just looking for any tiny detail to prove you're a hack.
"just added one to this variable now it works" = screwed.
"need to go back and fix this" = screwed.
"not sure why this works but it does" = screwed.
"Bob is an idiot, I am just going to comment out his code" = screwed.
Like Cardinal Richelieu said:
“If you give me six lines written by the hand of the most honest of men, I will find something in them which will hang him”
Right or wrong, these guys are gonna get the shaft.
You forget the massive PR campaign being waged on the side of the GW proponents.
Al Gore's been running around publicizing his new book in advance of Copenhagen.
You know, that book with the massive scientific impossibilities in the picture of what the Earth would look like due to GW.