Climate Research Centre email hacked.
21 November 2009, 09:01 AM
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Climate Research Centre email hacked.
See below. Some interesting stuff here.
Britain’s Climate Research Unit, University of East Anglia, suffered a data breach in recent days when a hacker apparently broke into their system and made away with thousands of emails and documents. The stolen data was then posted to a Russian server and has quickly made the rounds among climate skeptics. The documents within the archive, if proven to be authentic, would at best be embarrassing for many prominent climate researchers and at worst, damning.
Update, 3:45pm MST: No one is disputing the authenticity of the messages. Click here for details or scroll down.
The electronic break in itself has been verified by the director of the research unit, Professor Phil Jones. He told Britain’s Investigate magazine's TGIF Edition "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."
The file that has been making the rounds was initially brought to light by the website The Air Vent. The 61mb file contains thousands of documents and emails. As the archive was just discovered within the last 24 hours, its authenticity has not been determined and as such readers should cast a skeptical eye on the contents. It should also be noted that it appears the emails were illegally obtained by whoever originally posted them.
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At least one person that was included in some of the correspondence, Steve McIntyre of the website Climate Audit, verified the authenticity of at least some of the messages. McIntyre said, “Every email that I’ve examined so far looks genuine. There are a few emails of mine that are 100% genuine. It is really quite breathtaking.”
The contents of the archive contain documents and email correspondence from a veritable who’s who in climate science. Among those included in the emails are Phil Jones, Keith Briffa, his assistant, Michael Mann of the University of Virginia, Malcolm Hughes at the University of Arizona, Kevin Trenberth at the National Center for Atmospheric Research, James Hansen of NASA’s Goddard Institute of Space Studies and others.
The emails contain an array of discussions including what appear to be concerted efforts to withhold data. Just as troubling is conversations that allude to potentially manipulating climate data to “hide the decline” of temperatures seen in the last decade.
Some of the excerpts of emails within the archives (edited for brevity, emphasis added):
From Michael E. Mann (witholding of information / data):
Perhaps we'll do a simple update to the Yamal post, e.g. linking Keith/s new page--Gavin t? As to the issues of robustness, particularly w.r.t. inclusion of the Yamal series, we actually emphasized that (including the Osborn and Briffa '06 sensitivity test) in our original post! As we all know, this isn't about truth at all, its about plausibly deniable accusations.
From Phil Jones (witholding of data):
Update, 10:30am – Since the original publication of this article, the story is gaining steam and now the BBC is reporting on it. They report that a spokesman for the University of East Anglia's Climatic Research Unit (CRU), "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.”
Analysis of the emails and documents in the archives continues. We must stress that the authenticity has not been proven however there have been no denials of such by the climate center. Some of the more recent revelations include:
From Phil Jones (destroying of emails / evidence):
Britain’s Climate Research Unit, University of East Anglia, suffered a data breach in recent days when a hacker apparently broke into their system and made away with thousands of emails and documents. The stolen data was then posted to a Russian server and has quickly made the rounds among climate skeptics. The documents within the archive, if proven to be authentic, would at best be embarrassing for many prominent climate researchers and at worst, damning.
Update, 3:45pm MST: No one is disputing the authenticity of the messages. Click here for details or scroll down.
The electronic break in itself has been verified by the director of the research unit, Professor Phil Jones. He told Britain’s Investigate magazine's TGIF Edition "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."
The file that has been making the rounds was initially brought to light by the website The Air Vent. The 61mb file contains thousands of documents and emails. As the archive was just discovered within the last 24 hours, its authenticity has not been determined and as such readers should cast a skeptical eye on the contents. It should also be noted that it appears the emails were illegally obtained by whoever originally posted them.
- File download: The archive is available on FileDropper.com here
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At least one person that was included in some of the correspondence, Steve McIntyre of the website Climate Audit, verified the authenticity of at least some of the messages. McIntyre said, “Every email that I’ve examined so far looks genuine. There are a few emails of mine that are 100% genuine. It is really quite breathtaking.”
The contents of the archive contain documents and email correspondence from a veritable who’s who in climate science. Among those included in the emails are Phil Jones, Keith Briffa, his assistant, Michael Mann of the University of Virginia, Malcolm Hughes at the University of Arizona, Kevin Trenberth at the National Center for Atmospheric Research, James Hansen of NASA’s Goddard Institute of Space Studies and others.
The emails contain an array of discussions including what appear to be concerted efforts to withhold data. Just as troubling is conversations that allude to potentially manipulating climate data to “hide the decline” of temperatures seen in the last decade.
Some of the excerpts of emails within the archives (edited for brevity, emphasis added):
From Michael E. Mann (witholding of information / data):
Dear Phil and Gabi,
I’ve attached a cleaned-up and commented version of the matlab code that I wrote for doing the Mann and Jones (2003) composites. I did this knowing that Phil and I are likely to have to respond to more crap criticisms from the idiots in the near future, so best to clean up the code and provide to some of my close colleagues in case they want to test it, etc. Please feel free to use this code for your own internal purposes, but don’t pass it along where it may get into the hands of the wrong people.
From Nick McKay (modifying data):I’ve attached a cleaned-up and commented version of the matlab code that I wrote for doing the Mann and Jones (2003) composites. I did this knowing that Phil and I are likely to have to respond to more crap criticisms from the idiots in the near future, so best to clean up the code and provide to some of my close colleagues in case they want to test it, etc. Please feel free to use this code for your own internal purposes, but don’t pass it along where it may get into the hands of the wrong people.
The Korttajarvi record was oriented in the reconstruction in the way that McIntyre said. I took a look at the original reference – the temperature proxy we looked at is x-ray density, which the author interprets to be inversely related to temperature. We had higher values as warmer in the reconstruction, so it looks to me like we got it wrong, unless we decided to reinterpret the record which I don’t remember. Darrell, does this sound right to you?
From Tom Wigley (acknowleding the urban effect):We probably need to say more about this. Land warming since 1980 has been twice the ocean warming — and skeptics might claim that this proves that urban warming is real and important.
From Phil Jones (modification of data to hide unwanted results):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.
From Kevin Trenberth (failure of computer models):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 Michael Mann (truth doesn't matter):Perhaps we'll do a simple update to the Yamal post, e.g. linking Keith/s new page--Gavin t? As to the issues of robustness, particularly w.r.t. inclusion of the Yamal series, we actually emphasized that (including the Osborn and Briffa '06 sensitivity test) in our original post! As we all know, this isn't about truth at all, its about plausibly deniable accusations.
The skeptics seem to be building up a head of steam here! ... The IPCC comes in for a lot of stick. Leave it to you to delete as appropriate! Cheers Phil
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 !
From Michael E. Mann (using a website to control the message, hide dissent):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 !
Anyway, I wanted you guys to know that you’re free to use RC [RealClimate.org - A supposed neutral climate change website] Rein any way you think would be helpful. Gavin and I are going to be careful about what comments we screen through, and we’ll be very careful to answer any questions that come up to any extent we can. On the other hand, you might want to visit the thread and post replies yourself. We can hold comments up in the queue and contact you about whether or not you think they should be screened through or not, and if so, any comments you’d like us to include.
From Phil Jones (witholding of data):If FOIA does ever get used by anyone, there is also IPR to consider as well. Data is covered by all the agreements we sign with people, so I will be hiding behind them.
If the emails and documents are a forgery, it would be an extremely large one that would likely have taken months to setup. No doubt much more will be coming out about these emails and their possible authenticity. Stay tuned to the Climate Change Examiner for updates as more information becomes available.Update, 10:30am – Since the original publication of this article, the story is gaining steam and now the BBC is reporting on it. They report that a spokesman for the University of East Anglia's Climatic Research Unit (CRU), "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.”
Analysis of the emails and documents in the archives continues. We must stress that the authenticity has not been proven however there have been no denials of such by the climate center. Some of the more recent revelations include:
From Phil Jones (destroying of emails / evidence):
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.
From Tom Wigley (data modification):Phil, Here are some speculations on correcting SSTs to partly explain the 1940s warming blip. If you look at the attached plot you will see that the land also shows the 1940s blip (as I’m sure you know). So, if we could reduce the ocean blip by, say, 0.15 degC, then this would be significant for the global mean — but we’d still have to explain the land blip. I’ve chosen 0.15 here deliberately. This still leaves an ocean blip, and i think one needs to have some form of ocean blip to explain the land blip (via either some common forcing, or ocean forcing land, or vice versa, or all of these). When you look at other blips, the land blips are 1.5 to 2 times (roughly) the ocean blips — higher sensitivity plus thermal inertia effects. My 0.15 adjustment leaves things consistent with this, so you can see where I am coming from. Removing ENSO does not affect this. It would be good to remove at least part of the 1940s blip, but we are still left with “why the blip”. Let me go further. If you look at NH vs SH and the aerosol effect (qualitatively or with MAGICC) then with a reduced ocean blip we get continuous warming in the SH, and a cooling in the NH — just as one would expect with mainly NH aerosols. The other interesting thing is (as Foukal et al. note — from MAGICC) that the 1910-40 warming cannot be solar. The Sun can get at most 10% of this with **** et al solar, less with Foukal solar. So this may well be NADW, as Sarah and I noted in 1987 (and also Schlesinger later). A reduced SST blip in the 1940s makes the 1910-40 warming larger than the SH (which it currently is not) — but not really enough. So … why was the SH so cold around 1910? Another SST problem? (SH/NH data also attached.) This stuff is in a report I am writing for EPRI, so I’d appreciate any comments you (and Ben) might have. Tom.
From Thomas R Karl (witholding data) :We should be able to conduct our scientific research without constant fear of an "audit" by Steven McIntyre; without having to weigh every word we write in every email we send to our scientific colleagues. In my opinion, Steven McIntyre is the self-appointed Joe McCarthy of climate science. I am unwilling to submit to this McCarthy-style investigation of my scientific research. As you know, I have refused to send McIntyre the "derived" model data he requests, since all of the primary model data necessary to replicate our results are freely available to him. I will continue to refuse such data requests in the future. Nor will I provide McIntyre with computer programs, email correspondence, etc. I feel very strongly about these issues. We should not be coerced by the scientific equivalent of a playground bully. I will be consulting LLNL's Legal Affairs Office in order to determine how the DOE and LLNL should respond to any FOI requests that we receive from McIntyre.
From Tom Wigley (ousting of a skeptic from a professional organization):Proving bad behavior here is very difficult. If you think that Saiers is in the greenhouse skeptics camp, then, if we can find documentary evidence of this, we could go through official AGU channels to get him ousted.
From Phil Jones (forging of dates):Gene/Caspar, Good to see these two out. Wahl/Ammann doesn't appear to be in CC's online first, but comes up if you search. You likely know that McIntyre will check this one to make sure it hasn't changed since the IPCC close-off date July 2006! Hard copies of the WG1 report from CUP have arrived here today. Ammann/Wahl - try and change the Received date! Don't give those skeptics something to amuse themselves with.
From a document titled "jones-foiathoughts.doc" (witholding of data):Options appear to be:
1. Send them the data
2. Send them a subset removing station data from some of the countries who made us pay in the normals papers of Hulme et al. (1990s) and also any number that David can remember. This should also omit some other countries like (Australia, NZ, Canada, Antarctica). Also could extract some of the sources that Anders added in (31-38 source codes in J&M 2003). Also should remove many of the early stations that we coded up in the 1980s.
3. Send them the raw data as is, by reconstructing it from GHCN. How could this be done? Replace all stations where the WMO ID agrees with what is in GHCN. This would be the raw data, but it would annoy them.
From Mick Kelly (modifying data to hide cooling):1. Send them the data
2. Send them a subset removing station data from some of the countries who made us pay in the normals papers of Hulme et al. (1990s) and also any number that David can remember. This should also omit some other countries like (Australia, NZ, Canada, Antarctica). Also could extract some of the sources that Anders added in (31-38 source codes in J&M 2003). Also should remove many of the early stations that we coded up in the 1980s.
3. Send them the raw data as is, by reconstructing it from GHCN. How could this be done? Replace all stations where the WMO ID agrees with what is in GHCN. This would be the raw data, but it would annoy them.
Yeah, it wasn’t so much 1998 and all that that I was concerned about, used to dealing with that, but the possibility that we might be going through a longer – 10 year – period of relatively stable temperatures beyond what you might expect from La Nina etc. Speculation, but if I see this as a possibility then others might also. Anyway, I’ll maybe cut the last few points off the filtered curve before I give the talk again as that’s trending down as a result of the end effects and the recent cold-ish years.
Update, 3:45pm MDT: In regards to the authenticity, not one report disputing the veracity of the emails has come out. Many sources have talked to some of the email authors and they have not disputed the messages.
21 November 2009, 06:10 PM
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With billions of dollars, pounds and whatever in tax riding on the climate change lie, there are a great many people with massive vested interests who will lie, lie, LIE and lie again to justify their slice of the biggest, fattest pie going. The biggest idiots aren't the politicians, they're the clever ones creaming the most, it's the eco-nutjob public who've been suckered into bending over and taking it good and hard whilst having their wallets pilfered.
21 November 2009, 06:41 PM
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With billions of dollars, pounds and whatever in tax riding on the climate change lie, there are a great many people with massive vested interests who will lie, lie, LIE and lie again to justify their slice of the biggest, fattest pie going. The biggest idiots aren't the politicians, they're the clever ones creaming the most, it's the eco-nutjob public who've been suckered into bending over and taking it good and hard whilst having their wallets pilfered.
Issue is that climate change has almost become a religious faith. People seem to think that if they have enough faith, then it WILL happen, at some point...
Hopefully in time we may be able to move back from our current stance, I just don't see it happening any time soon 
21 November 2009, 06:47 PM
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Would it be fair to say you are a sceptic then Dave ? I'm old enough to remember the hottest summer on record, and it wasn't in the last two decades 
Hi, from me, hope you and yours are all well !
dunx
Hi, from me, hope you and yours are all well !
dunx
21 November 2009, 07:08 PM
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WRONG. It was 2006. Do you see how easy this climate studies are to manipulate?
Longest, hottest summer in UK
By TOM WELLS
Published: 16 Oct 2006
BRITAIN has just basked in its longest and hottest summer since records began in 1659, the Met Office has revealed.
The average temperature from May to September was 16.2°C (61.2°F).
The previous record of 15.9°C (60.6°F) was in 1947.
Met Office spokesman Wayne Elliott said: “It is extraordinary how many records have been broken ? in all parts of Britain.”
July was the sunniest and hottest month on record, with 263 sunshine hours and temperatures of 36.5°C (97.7°F).
Longest, hottest summer in UK
By TOM WELLS
Published: 16 Oct 2006
BRITAIN has just basked in its longest and hottest summer since records began in 1659, the Met Office has revealed.
The average temperature from May to September was 16.2°C (61.2°F).
The previous record of 15.9°C (60.6°F) was in 1947.
Met Office spokesman Wayne Elliott said: “It is extraordinary how many records have been broken ? in all parts of Britain.”
July was the sunniest and hottest month on record, with 263 sunshine hours and temperatures of 36.5°C (97.7°F).
21 November 2009, 08:02 PM
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Anyone remember the extreme Dickensian winters described in his classic books, which gave rise to our current icons of snow, ice-skating and robins on fence posts at Christmas ? The stories of elephants walking across the Thames due to the ice being so thick ! Also, consider that 70m years ago, sea levels were 100m higher than today, CO2 levels 100% higher, there were NO ice caps with a global temperature some 5º warmer than now, and with 0% human population. 18,000 years ago sea levels dropped some 120m, due in no small part to much of it being entombed in a 30% ice coverage. CO2 levels were similar to todays levels, but with an overall global temperature some 11º cooler than the Jurassic period, and 6º cooler than now. There were approximately 1m humans alive then. Today, with 6.7bn of us, ice covers 10.7%, and CO2 levels are on the rise, some 40% up on two centuries ago. Some predictions say that 100 years from now temperatures will rise by 4º, still not at the level of 70m years ago, resulting in sea level rises of less than 1m (0.8m to be precise), and CO2 levels some 320% up on even today. The human population is indeed a problem, predicted to hit 8.7bn by then, and this should, and could be addressed.
The Earth does its thing, has its cycles, influenced mainly by the Sun, also its own core activity, water and weather cycles, and there is nothing we can do to control or influence this. The belief that we can, or rather the misuse of the belief that we can gives ammunition to greedy, ruthless thieves, or as you may know them, politicians. Of all the tens of thousands of predictions, simulations models and research studies, a single geological event such as Yellowstone erupting could render every single one a complete waste of time, effort and (massive amounts of) money.
Being sensible, waste is silly, irresponsible and unnecessary, so there is no reason for needless wastefulness, and plenty of justification for recycling and other sustainable behaviour. I have no problem with finding alternative energy sources, it is a worthy and viable pursuit. I do however object to the abuse and misuse of corrupt and at best, questionable scientific data to steal from every person on the planet.
The Earth does its thing, has its cycles, influenced mainly by the Sun, also its own core activity, water and weather cycles, and there is nothing we can do to control or influence this. The belief that we can, or rather the misuse of the belief that we can gives ammunition to greedy, ruthless thieves, or as you may know them, politicians. Of all the tens of thousands of predictions, simulations models and research studies, a single geological event such as Yellowstone erupting could render every single one a complete waste of time, effort and (massive amounts of) money.
Being sensible, waste is silly, irresponsible and unnecessary, so there is no reason for needless wastefulness, and plenty of justification for recycling and other sustainable behaviour. I have no problem with finding alternative energy sources, it is a worthy and viable pursuit. I do however object to the abuse and misuse of corrupt and at best, questionable scientific data to steal from every person on the planet.
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21 November 2009, 08:19 PM
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The real issue is the growth in our population. Whilst is an unpalatable truth, we need to put a cap on the number of people this planet is supporting.
If we don't nature will, and it won't be pretty.
If we don't nature will, and it won't be pretty.
22 November 2009, 12:06 PM
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We need a completely new set of politicians to replace the lying self seeking gits that we have at the moment!
Years ago they used to be comparatively trustworthy, they actually seemed to possess a code of honour of sorts.
Not many of the ones we have now will ever be trusted by the electorate again.
Les
Years ago they used to be comparatively trustworthy, they actually seemed to possess a code of honour of sorts.
Not many of the ones we have now will ever be trusted by the electorate again.
Les
22 November 2009, 12:42 PM
#10
The mathematical model for climate change was worked out many years ago by Mulatin Milankovitch. Its known as the Milankovitch cycles.
There is no denying that climate change happens, but its caused by orbital eccentricity, obliquity, and precession of the earth in its orbit around the sun.
All this crap about it being the fault of mankind is complete nonsense.
This next bit is just my opinion.
Its really a global conspiracy brought about by the Kyoto agreement. All the worlds powers have got together to see how they can make money by coming up with new forms of taxation. Someone came up with this brilliant idea of saying "the end of the world is nigh" and its caused by global warming, and its all our fault. Lets tax everything and everybody so as we can get the funding for our lavish expenses.
That is a much simplified version of events as I see it.
How increased taxation will combat climate change is something known only to a polititian, but here's how I think it works. Lets say it was back in the dark ages, and the tribe leader knew of a total eclipse of the sun about to happen. He says to his people that they must all give a sacrifice of everything of value the own, or it will stay dark forever. After he gets the goods, the sun comes back out again. His taxation cured the problem. What's happening now is just a much bigger version of this.
There is no denying that climate change happens, but its caused by orbital eccentricity, obliquity, and precession of the earth in its orbit around the sun.
All this crap about it being the fault of mankind is complete nonsense.
This next bit is just my opinion.
Its really a global conspiracy brought about by the Kyoto agreement. All the worlds powers have got together to see how they can make money by coming up with new forms of taxation. Someone came up with this brilliant idea of saying "the end of the world is nigh" and its caused by global warming, and its all our fault. Lets tax everything and everybody so as we can get the funding for our lavish expenses.
That is a much simplified version of events as I see it.
How increased taxation will combat climate change is something known only to a polititian, but here's how I think it works. Lets say it was back in the dark ages, and the tribe leader knew of a total eclipse of the sun about to happen. He says to his people that they must all give a sacrifice of everything of value the own, or it will stay dark forever. After he gets the goods, the sun comes back out again. His taxation cured the problem. What's happening now is just a much bigger version of this.
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