Hacked e-mails fuel climate change debate

**Nikos** · November 23, 2009, 05:37 PM

http://edition.cnn.com/2009/TECH/11/23/hacker.climate/

An online debate over global warming science has broken out after an unknown hacker broke into the e-mail server at a prominent climate-research center, stole more than a thousand e-mails about global warming and posted them online. Global warming skeptics are seizing on portions of the messages as evidence that scientists are colluding and warping data to fit the theory of global warming, but researchers say the e-mails are being taken out of context and just show scientists engaged in frank discussion.
The Climate Research Unit at the University of East Anglia, is one of the United Kingdom's leading climate research centers and has been a strong proponent of the position that global warming is real and has human causes. The center confirmed the hack occurred in an e-mail statement to Wired.coml.
"We are aware that information from a server in one area of the university has been made available on public websites," the statement read. "We are extremely concerned that personal information about individuals may have been compromised. Because of the volume of this information we cannot currently confirm what proportion of this material is genuine."
The stolen cache includes more than 1,000 e-mails and more than 3,000 documents, some containing code. They were posted anonymously to an FTP server in Russia. The hacker then posted a link to the 61-MB file on the blog Air Vent.
The hacker's message that accompanied the link read: "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 e-mails, which cover a decade of correspondence, are getting a lot of attention among bloggers who point to statements in them that they say suggest the scientists colluded and manipulated data to support their global warming viewpoints. The bloggers highlight a statement in one 1999 e-mail from Phil Jones, director of the research center:
"I've just completed Mike's Nature trick of adding in the real temps to each series for the last 20 years (i.e., from 1981 onwards) and from 1961 for Keith's to hide the decline."
The comment refers to Michael Mann, director of the Earth System Science Center at Pennsylvania State University. Mann told Wired.com the "Nature trick" refers to a solution for displaying data that he and others used in a paper they published to get around a problem in the way that temperature data is traditionally displayed.
The solution allows for better viewing and understanding of the data, Mann said, and pointed to a post on the RealClimate blog that his colleagues have made to explain the reference. That post also indicates that the hacker first tried to post the trove of stolen data to the RealClimate blog on Tuesday.
Another e-mail from Jones dated last year with the subject line "IPCC and FOI" is a request to Michael Mann, director of the Earth System Science Center at the University of Pennsylvania, asking him to delete certain e-mails. Bloggers allege that Jones was trying to destroy data that had been requested under the Freedom of Information Act.
Jones wasn't available for comment. Mann told Threat Level that he never deleted any e-mails and doesn't know the context under which Jones made the request.
Bloggers allege that an e-mail from Kevin Trenberth, head of the Climate Analysis Section at the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colorado, suggests that reality contradicts scientific claims about global warming:
"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....
"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."
But Trenberth, who acknowledged the e-mail is genuine, says bloggers are missing the point he's making in it by not reading the article cited in his e-mail. That article, called "An Imperative for Climate Change Planning," actually says that global warming is continuing, despite random temperature variations that would seem to suggest otherwise.
"It says we don't have an observing system adequate to track it, but there are all other kinds of signs aside from global mean temperatures -- including melting of Arctic sea ice and rising sea levels and a lot of other indicators -- that global warming is continuing," he says.
Gavin Schmidt, a research scientist with NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies, says the e-mails offer no damning indictment of climate researchers, and that bloggers are reading information in them out of context.
"There's nothing in the e-mails that shows that global warming is a hoax," he told Threat Level. "There's no funding by nefarious groups. There's no politics in any of these things; nobody from the [United Nations] telling people what to do. There's nothing hidden, no manipulation.
"It's just scientists talking about science, and they're talking relatively openly as people in private e-mails generally are freer with their thoughts than they would be in a public forum. The few quotes that are being pulled out [are out] of context. People are using language used in science and interpreting it in a completely different way."
Trenberth agrees.
"If you read all of these e-mails, you will be surprised at the integrity of these scientists," he says. "The unfortunate thing about this is that people can cherry pick and take things out of context."

Well this is a new interesting development. It appears that the scientists are much more skeptical in private about global climate change then they are in public. And now the scientists are claiming that their e-mails and private correspondence support their "official" view that the earth is rapidly warming. I honestly do not know what to believe anymore as the data is conflicting to me in some areas, but what does TWC think? Is climate change being blown out of proportion and becoming overly politicized? Or is it as great a danger as the scientists claim in public but seem to use trickery in private and seem much more skeptical in private.

**Ænema** · November 23, 2009, 06:11 PM

I think it's way over exaggerated. It's natural and it happens every decade or so. Our climate changes slightly and we adapt to it.

And what happened to the "Global Warming" hype?

**Teutonic Joe** · November 23, 2009, 06:15 PM

Originally Posted by Ænema

And what happened to the "Global Warming" hype?

it got really cold...

**chamaeleo** · November 23, 2009, 06:27 PM

Bloggers allege that an e-mail from Kevin Trenberth, head of the Climate Analysis Section at the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colorado, suggests that reality contradicts scientific claims about global warming:
"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....
"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."

A climate scientist's anecdotal observation on local weather...this is him joking to another scientist. It's funny to him the same way it's funny whenever some idiot Mudpit poster asserts that a blizzard is valid evidence to the contrary of mainstream scientific knowledge. It's called sarcasm, but if you want to call it absolute proof of a global conspiracy, maybe we should take every joke just as seriously. Maybe start jailing people for racist jokes, as hate crimes proving an intent for malice?

Lamenting that his observations don't jive with his prediction: I'm not sure a researcher exists who hasn't done the same! It is not an admission of error, rather, it is acknowledgement of time to roll up his sleeves, and look for potential causes. In fact, most breakthroughs arrive on the coat-tails of something going awry. Being right all the time is boring, anyway.

**Nikos** · November 23, 2009, 06:33 PM

Originally Posted by chamaeleo

A climate scientist's anecdotal observation on local weather...this is him joking to another scientist. It's funny to him the same way it's funny whenever some idiot Mudpit poster asserts that a blizzard is valid evidence to the contrary of mainstream scientific knowledge. It's called sarcasm, but if you want to call it absolute proof of a global conspiracy, maybe we should take every joke just as seriously. Maybe start jailing people for racist jokes, as hate crimes proving an intent for malice?

Lamenting that his observations don't jive with his prediction: I'm not sure a researcher exists who hasn't done the same! It is not an admission of error, rather, it is acknowledgement of time to roll up his sleeves, and look for potential causes. In fact, most breakthroughs arrive on the coat-tails of something going awry. Being right all the time is boring, anyway.

I'm not claiming any such thing, and the falsifying of the data is what concerns me the most. Using a trick to make the data support your position isn't good science. And there is no proof what the scientist said is a joke, he said "we cannot account for the lack of warming" which indicates to me that the Climate change panic has been a little over blown.

**Seleucos of Olympia** · November 23, 2009, 06:45 PM

About that "trick" read here:
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php.../the-cru-hack/

Phil Jones in discussing the presentation of temperature reconstructions stated that "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." The paper in question is the Mann, Bradley and Hughes (1998) Nature paper on the original multiproxy temperature reconstruction, and the 'trick' is just to plot the instrumental records along with reconstruction so that the context of the recent warming is clear. Scientists often use the term "trick" to refer to a "a good way to deal with a problem", rather than something that is "secret", and so there is nothing problematic in this at all. As for the 'decline', it is well known that Keith Briffa's maximum latewood tree ring density proxy diverges from the temperature records after 1960 (this is more commonly known as the "divergence problem"-see e.g. the recent discussion in this paper) and has been discussed in the literature since Briffa et al in Nature in 1998 (Nature, 391, 678-682). Those authors have always recommend not using the post 1960 part of their reconstruction, and so while 'hiding' is probably a poor choice of words (since it is 'hidden' in plain sight), not using the data in the plot is completely appropriate, as is further research to understand why this happens.

There's also a thread about this already.

**Nikos** · November 23, 2009, 06:47 PM

Originally Posted by Seleucos of Olympia

There's also a thread about this already.

You are correct, would a moderator kindly close this thread?

**chamaeleo** · November 23, 2009, 06:53 PM

Nikos:
For the record, falsifying data is a capital offense in Science, a certified career-killer and reputation-ruiner. It is also extremely easy to spot: experiments must be replicatable to be taken seriously. Consequently, it is extremely rare. Certainly more rare than you seem to think!

I know you're not making claims, you just asked for opinions. I think that the statement I highlighted in particular demonstrates an out of context interpretation. It'd be like if a priest's email said: "I wonder about this whole God guy sometimes. I prayed my ass off all morning, and nearly got hit by a bus on my lunch break!". Is the priest really questioning his faith?

I've worked on studies where final data and expectations were way different. The causes can be many. It is usually not a problem with the expectation: it might be a sampling, data entry, or methodology error, too limited a dataset, too short a time period, or an overlooked variable. Either way, to me the puzzled scientist is trying to figure out what's wrong: for him to assert that unsupportive data is contrary proof is way too premature. That'd be bad science, and a lack of creative thinking.

"He cannot account for the lack of warming"...that's him saying "we don't know why our hypothesis ain't panning out!", not "OMG we're totally wrong!". Research is cyclical, requiring multiple angles of attack and anticipating nebulous variables...and climate research is about as complex as it gets. Also keep in mind that this researcher is studying but one tiny aspect of a huge, multidisciplinary question, just because his study fails doesn't render the entire community false: some companies are doing great despite the recession, does this mean there's no recession?

**Nikos** · November 23, 2009, 07:14 PM

Originally Posted by chamaeleo

Nikos:
For the record, falsifying data is a capital offense in Science, a certified career-killer and reputation-ruiner. It is also extremely easy to spot: experiments must be replicatable to be taken seriously. Consequently, it is extremely rare. Certainly more rare than you seem to think!

I know, the e-mails just threw up a red flag for me. Especially since I have just finished re-reading "State of fear" by Michael Crichton.

I know you're not making claims, you just asked for opinions. I think that the statement I highlighted in particular demonstrates an out of context interpretation. It'd be like if a priest's email said: "I wonder about this whole God guy sometimes. I prayed my ass off all morning, and nearly got hit by a bus on my lunch break!". Is the priest really questioning his faith?

Even Mother Theresa questioned her faith, but I see what point you're making.

I've worked on studies where final data and expectations were way different. The causes can be many. It is usually not a problem with the expectation: it might be a sampling, data entry, or methodology error, too limited a dataset, too short a time period, or an overlooked variable. Either way, to me the puzzled scientist is trying to figure out what's wrong: for him to assert that unsupportive data is contrary proof is way too premature. That'd be bad science, and a lack of creative thinking.

Of course it would be bad science to throw out all the data for Climate change on this one find, but it should get the Scientific community thinking on a whole if the theory of rapid man made climate change has been over blown.

"He cannot account for the lack of warming"...that's him saying "we don't know why our hypothesis ain't panning out!", not "OMG we're totally wrong!". Research is cyclical, requiring multiple angles of attack and anticipating nebulous variables...and climate research is about as complex as it gets. Also keep in mind that this researcher is studying but one tiny aspect of a huge, multidisciplinary question, just because his study fails doesn't render the entire community false: some companies are doing great despite the recession, does this mean there's no recession?

I know, as a Paleobiology minor I'm all too aware of the scientific method (and how annoying analyzing data and experimentation over and over again can be but I digress). But whenever one of our Hypothesis is incorrect (The posture of T-Rex for example) we re-think it and try to find the correct answer and theory. I think that the Climate scientists need to do more revaluating with their research, I don't think the science is there that proves rapid man made global climate change.