Climate scientists accused of 'manipulating global warming data'

[Hopeless Romantic]

Some of the world’s top climate scientists have been accused of manipulating data on global warming after hundreds of private emails were stolen by hackers and published online.

The material was taken from servers at the University of East Anglia’s Climatic Research Unit – a world-renowned climate change research centre – before it was published on websites run by climate change sceptics.

It has been claimed that the emails show that scientists manipulated data to bolster their argument that global warming is genuine and is being caused by human actions.

One email seized upon by sceptics as supposed evidence of this, refers to a “trick” being employed to massage temperature statistics to “hide the decline”.

The university yesterday confirmed that research data had been stolen and published online and said it had reported the security breach to police.

A spokesman said: “We are aware that information from a server used for research information in one area of the university has been made available on public websites.

“Because of the volume of this information we cannot currently confirm that all this material is genuine.

“This information has been obtained and published without our permission and we took immediate action to remove the server in question from operation. We are undertaking a thorough internal investigation and have involved the police in this inquiry."

The files were apparently first uploaded on to a Russian server and then mirrored across the internet.
An anonymous statement accompanying the emails said: “We feel that climate science is too important to be kept under wraps. We hereby release a random selection of correspondence, code, and documents.

Hopefully it will give some insight into the science and the people behind it.”

One of the emails under scrutiny, dated November 1999, reads: "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."

Scientists who are alleged to be the authors of the emails in question have declined to comment on the matter.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/environment/climatechange/6619796/Climate-scientists-accused-of-manipulating-global-warming-data.html

[oldironside]

1. We have to filter the truth through the slant the Torygraph gives...

... but declining to comment is the worst thing these scientists could have done. Kennedy's Chappaquiduk theorum: The sooner and in more detail you admit to bad news, the better. Did the journo ring them late on a Friday afternoon just as they were on their way out the door? Very iffy, in my view.

[LeftishBrit]

2. Not sure; both commenting and declining to comment can get twisted

There is the old story of the bishop who visited New York, and was asked by an aggressive reporter, "So what do you think of the strip clubs in New York?" He parried the question, "Are there any strip clubs in New York?" He was shocked to read the headline the next morning: "BISHOP'S FIRST QUESTION: ARE THERE ANY STRIP CLUBS IN NEW YORK?"

[fedsron2us]

3. There are some serious issues here

that are likely to get lost as both the proponents and opponents of AGW (Anthropogenic Global Warming) leap to the barricades to defend their positions.

The emails certainly suggest that the CRU are not entirely disinterested seekers after the truth. In particular their reluctance to make their data fully available for open peer review and the hints that temperature data may have been 'adjusted' (for whatever reason) leaves a rather nasty impression. This is simply too important an issue with implications for housing, food, energy, economic and social policy effecting billions of people to allow any sort of gerrymandering. As so often happens in academia I suspect that questions of jobs, careers, research grants, desire for acceptance by ones colleagues etc is playing a significant and not always benign role in how studies are carried out.

Worth noting that this may actually be a leak rather than an external hack

http://www.examiner.com/x-28973-Essex-County-Conservative-Examiner~y2009m11d21-Who-leaked-the-Hadley-CRU-files-and-why

A discussion of some of the issues can be found here

http://forum.netweather.tv/topic/57645-cru-emails-and-data

You can read and search the source material here

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

Interesting article from the Register about how the medieval warm period has been made to 'disappear' (as a former student of the history and archaeology of the middle ages I would point out that there is plenty of forensic evidence to suggest the European climate from about 900 CE to 1300 CE was very benign in much of Europe e.g settlement patterns, crop distributions etc)

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/09/29/yamal_scandal/print.html

I suppose the $64,000 question is whether feeding data into models (however sophisticated) to make predictions about future climate changes is really science, given that no experiment can be conducted to prove or disprove the hypothesis in the real world.

[LeftishBrit]

5. Well, as someone who has worked in academia for many years, I would certainly agree that

'questions of jobs, careers, research grants, desire for acceptance by ones colleagues etc is playing a significant and not always benign role in how studies are carried out.'

Especially in these days of the Research Assessment Exercise, Impact Factors, league tables, etc. No more benign in its effects than OFSTED and league tables in school education, or the 'internal market' in health.

However, I think I would trust the media even less. They may well have selected the evidence in a misleading and sensationalized way. Also, the AGW theory is hardly exclusive to Britain, so that even if the CRU data all turns out to be worthless, there is plenty of research elsewhere that supports the theory.

'whether feeding data into models (however sophisticated) to make predictions about future climate changes is really science, given that no experiment can be conducted to prove or disprove the hypothesis in the real world.'

I suppose the best one *can* do is make predictions on the basis of the data that one has, and past history. It's never going to be perfect, as there are so many confounding factors.

[fedsron2us]

6. I dont really have an axe to grind on AGW

My own limited reading on the matter suggests it is a real enough phenomenon. Nor do I think models are completely valueless since I work in an area of IT where they are regularly used. Indeed, for running simulations of scenarios that have happened in the past they can be quite accurate particularly with the appropriate controls applied. My real doubts occur when they are used to predict future events in subjects as complex as climate and the economy. One only needs to see how wildly inaccurate most of the city institutions models proved to be in predicting the risk of default that caused the market in CDOs to implode. When the data is as 'dirty' as it appears to be here my unease grows even greater. The real problem here is that the CRU have used the issue of intellectual property rights to restrict access to their data and to stifle proper reviews of their work. On a topic as important as this one that effects so much money and the lives of so many people this is not acceptable.

[fedsron2us]

4. Just had a look at the HARRY_READ_ME.txt file

which is one of the leaked documents. It is quite an eyeopener and is probably more damaging to the CRU than all the other documents combined.

This is a 194 KB text file describing in detail the trials and tribulations of the eponymous 'harry' trying to produce a new master database of readings from various weather stations. Despite the fact that the old master database appears to have been full of corrupt data it was still used as the basis for validating and incorporating new readings.

If this was used as input to models I would regard any output as being highly dubious.

More here

http://www.neuralnetwriter.cylo42.com/node/2421

[paulsby]

7. this is a major story and a major screw-up

and imo it's going to get bigger. these emails are pretty frigging damning.

i've already seen some very choice passages on the web. i believe in anthropogenic gw. but... i will not let me current belief dissuade me from analyzing this major discovery, and if evidence supports it, i am open to changing my mind

yknow, calling this a screwup is not really correct. that implies error, without intent. this sounds more like collusion to publish fraudulent data.

[Nihil]

8. Yeah, yeah, yeah ...

The stuff that the Swift Boat veterans published was "pretty frigging damning"
too wasn't it?

And that passport that was found below the WTC.

And the "anthrax" that Colin Powell held up in the press conference.

Strangely enough, the same type of people tend to support the same side on
these things ... now *that* is "pretty frigging damning" ...

[paulsby]

9. no, not really

if you can find any analogy between the swift boat veteran crap, or the passport crap, or the throbbing memo and this, let me know.

this does not surprise me at all. there is somewhat of a scientist worship in many parts. scientists are people. they are just as prone to prejudice, bias, collusion, dishonesty, etc. as anybody else. science can never be perfect, unbiased, or objective, because ultimately it is performed by scientists who have all the foibles of humanity.

if these emails had been corporate CEO's colluding about price vs. scientists colluding about fudging climate data, people here would be up in arms. but since it's people colluding about something we believe in, people like you will let their cognitive dissonance engine kick into overdrive.

but you use the childish tactic of accusing me of being a swiftboater etc. in order to discredit my argument. again, that's just childish.

if you don't think this story is a big deal, fine. i do . i said the same thing about the ACORN story at the very outset, and everybody was like "no, it's just ONE office and bla bla" and next thing you know- it's a huge story.

of course, people like you will only intensify the importance of this story, by denying the importance.

it's kind of like the difference between obama and clinton. obama said (essentially) "fuck yea, i smoked some pot when i was younger. who the fuck cares? next question..." whereas clinton gave his "i smoked but didn't inhale crap, which even if true (which i doubt), just sounds like a weasely quasi-admission"

facts are facts. and the facts thus far support that this is a big story. scientists have done this before, look at margaret mead for example. and they will do it again. fraud is fraud, even when it's done by those oh so holy scientists

[Nihil]

10. Yes, really.

> if you can find any analogy between the swift boat veteran crap,
> or the passport crap, or the throbbing memo and this, let me know.

Selective astroturfing of faked and/or out of context comments/actions.


> but you use the childish tactic of accusing me of being a swiftboater
> etc. in order to discredit my argument. again, that's just childish.

My actual words were:
>> Strangely enough, the same type of people tend to support the same side on
>> these things ... now *that* is "pretty frigging damning" ...

And I stand by those as the ONLY post in the UK forum in your entire DU "life"
had been that one - to join in with the claims that "this is a major story"
and "these emails are pretty frigging damning".

Nothing about *any* other issue in the 9 months or so you've been here.
Just this one (well-sponsored) event that is desperate to find any smear
that can be associated with climate change scientists.

> facts are facts. and the facts thus far support that this is a big story.

No. The facts about climate change are indeed facts that have been reported
far & wide without these two individuals even needing to share an opinion
(much less have it distorted and bullshitted to the extent that your allies
are frantically trying to do). This "story" is so trivial as to be rated
with Britney's bra size or the latest "missing white girl" crap that pretends
to be "news" these days. It is only "big" in the sense that it is the only
chance that the right wing deniers have got to maintain their business as
usual facade.