513 replies to this topic

[The PIT]

Roger J Smith, on 20 November 2009 - 19:11 , said:

However, one has to understand that the skeptics have been shut out of the international media, and that many, many people are concerned about the possible falsification of IPCC data, the possible exaggeration of the risks and dangers of climate change, and the resultant potentially catastrophic mistakes that our national governments might soon be making, or may already have made, in their political responses.

This is very serious stuff to place in the hands of a few dodgy grad-student types who may have more interest in spreading socialism than fixing the climate. We need to know everything that we can while there is still time, and there is a very widespread concern that these subjects have been media-managed by elites, and not subjected to the normal political scrutiny.

As for the scientific community being united, that is a self-fulfilling prophecy -- you are booted out of the community if you disagree. It's like saying all Catholics revere the Virgin Mary.

The other point worth making about the scientific consensus is that non-climate scientists trust this community to have their own high standards of peer review and intellectual rigour. If it turns out, as I suspect has been the case all along, that climate change is a giant house of cards based on faulty assumptions, flawed data, and hysterical over-reliance on meaningless computer models, then the rest of the scientific community needs to come into the atmospheric sciences and provide some adult supervision.

These issues are too important to leave undiscussed and undebated. People have a right to responsible government and not to being stampeded into dangerous and ill-advised wholesale changes that could potentially do far more harm than good.

I wouldn't just say shut out harried and bullied out. Anyway pretty well spot on post.

[AtlanticFlamethrower]

The climate data is the importance stuff, but as a warm-up act the emails are great fun.

Telegraph's James Delingpole sumarises some of it for those who don't want to download the 157mb file.

Here are a couple of Emails

Playing the man not the ball

Quote

“This was the danger of always criticising the skeptics for not publishing in the “peer-reviewed literature”. Obviously, they found a solution to that–take over a journal! So what do we do about this? I think we have to stop considering “Climate Research” as a legitimate peer-reviewed journal. Perhaps we should encourage our colleagues in the climate research community to no longer submit to, or cite papers in, this journal. We would also need to consider what we tell or request of our more reasonable colleagues who currently sit on the editorial board…What do others think?”

and some honesty

Quote

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

[The PIT]

One hour 7 minutes to go before I get the file.

[Thundery wintry showers]

I would have a lot more sympathy for the hackers if their main purpose was to further scientific debate by questioning aspects of the scientific consensus- as opposed to trying to make certain climate scientists look bad and undermine the case for AGW using Ad Hominems.

[The PIT]

Thundery wintry showers, on 20 November 2009 - 19:33 , said:

I would have a lot more sympathy for the hackers if their main purpose was to further scientific debate by questioning aspects of the scientific consensus- as opposed to trying to make certain climate scientists look bad and undermine the case for AGW using Ad Hominems.

You don't know what the reason was. Perhaps they were alarmed by the contents and the unprofessional manner of the research. I haven't seen yet it but I guess you've read the stuff already to reach your conclusion. If they'd run to the papers asking for money that would indicate more of what you're hinting. Sticking it on a ftp server for no personnel gain is a different matter. It could be a spurned lover looking for revenge as far as we know and no real hack or just real slack security.

[AtlanticFlamethrower]

Thundery wintry showers, on 20 November 2009 - 19:33 , said:

I would have a lot more sympathy for the hackers if their main purpose was to further scientific debate by questioning aspects of the scientific consensus- as opposed to trying to make certain climate scientists look bad and undermine the case for AGW using Ad Hominems.

The emails are suggestive of the mentality of some of the climate scientists at the top of the global warming tree.

If the emails are true there really is nowhere to hide...

This is one 156mb horse that isn't going back into its stables.

Edited by AtlanticFlamethrower, 20 November 2009 - 20:12 .

[johnholmes]

AtlanticFlamethrower, on 20 November 2009 - 19:21 , said:

The climate data is the importance stuff, but as a warm-up act the emails are great fun.

Telegraph's James Delingpole sumarises some of it for those who don't want to download the 157mb file.

Here are a couple of Emails

Playing the man not the ball



and some honesty

short clips like that AF are no use to anyone-are you trying to discredit who wrote that (perhaps you know who wrote it and in what context-sad as you have not given the rest of us that privilege) If you really must drop minute quotes in please explain in what context, by whom, and to whom they were sent.

[SteveB]

I've said it before & I say it again. I never believed humans contributed to global warming or caused it, & never will.

This hacking business is bad for all parties concerned, & we will have to see what happens when the dust settles.

Shame on the hackers, & shame on the scientists.

[Frozen Lands]

SteveB, on 20 November 2009 - 21:24 , said:

I've said it before & I say it again. I never believed humans contributed to global warming or caused it, & never will.

This hacking business is bad for all parties concerned, & we will have to see what happens when the dust settles.

Shame on the hackers, & shame on the scientists.

I have to say although I too do not condone theft, I think there is too much focus on the hacking of this data. I bet there is a flip side where everyone would think it was alright and cheer on the hackers!

E.G. Headline: "Hackers steal data that reveals a cure for cancer that the goverment wanted to keep secret"

BEFORE...anyone starts on that example, I am not saying for one second the government (any) would want to keep something like that secret, BUT you know what I mean.

P.S. Think Watergate...do you think that info would ever have been released by choice? And dont pull the Freedom of Information Act on that one either...you can bet the data would have been destroyed eventually.

[laserguy]

SteveB, on 20 November 2009 - 21:24 , said:

I've said it before & I say it again. I never believed humans contributed to global warming or caused it, & never will.

This hacking business is bad for all parties concerned, & we will have to see what happens when the dust settles.

Shame on the hackers, & shame on the scientists.

I'll second that. The hackers are akin to the nutjobs who protest atop power stations. A pity it's come to this. 'Ways and Means...' I've just got home from work,looks like I've a bit of catching up to do. Noticed that there's well over a 1,000 comments on WUWT - wow!

[AtlanticFlamethrower]

In case there was any doubt with anyone reading this thread, Phil Jones has verified the authenticity of the stolen data and some emails journalists have specifically asked him to verify.

Nothing is being denied.

Quote

Michael Mann via UK Guardian:
“I’m not going to comment on the content of illegally obtained emails. However, I will say this: both their theft and, I believe, any reproduction of the emails that were obtained on public websites, etc, constitutes serious criminal activity. I’m hoping the perpetrators and their facilitators will be tracked down and prosecuted to the fullest extent the law allows.”

Edited by AtlanticFlamethrower, 21 November 2009 - 00:47 .

[PersianPaladin]

Captain_Bobski, on 20 November 2009 - 14:41 , said:

Bear in mind that the recipients (and senders) of the e-mails may well have deleted them at their end(s), but mail servers often keep copies in archives. It seems likely that a hacker would not take time to hack numerous e-mail accounts but would aim straight for the archives.

I am not condoning the hack in any way, shape or form, nor am I going to accept this as all true and unmanipulated, but I would have thought that it would be an absolutely gargantuan task to trawl through literally thousands of emails and documents and plant disinformation.

One thing that may point to suspicious goings-on is the fact that, apparently, the hack took place a few days before the documents were released on the web. On the other hand, it may simply be that the hacker(s) spent some time going through the correspondence before releasing it.

Whatever the situation, now is certainly not the time for skeptics to be jumping up and down declaring victory (not accusing anyone here of that!)- if it does turn out to be fraudulent then there's going to be a lot of egg on a lot of faces. At the same time, I am surprised at how aggressively defensive a lot of Pros are becoming already (and I mean across the whole web).

Right now it's a bit of a waiting game while the legitimacy of the documents is determined.



CB

I disagree. You could just use a grep utility to return certain phrases from the email list and then randomly insert information in just a few. Also I think people are misreading some of the emails and assuming a context whereas in reality there could be nothing sinister about it.

As far as I'm concerned, this looks like another attempt to stall progress in fighting climate change.

The problem with people though, is that they get all skeptical and conspiratorial about anthropogenic global warming but yet totally accept government reports about health, terrorism, and warfare without question.

http://www.naturalne...vilization.html

An intelligent and rational analysis leads to the conclusion that the government and corporations are exploiting a crisis. As Hillary Clinton once said "never waste a good crisis".

Edited by PersianPaladin, 21 November 2009 - 01:17 .

[Chris Knight]

This forum seems weary - As LG says WUWT is doing a roaring trade in this "Aunt Sally", as now is RC (Gavin has got his head together with his mates at CRU by whatever means they now use to communicate, and are doing a splendid, and "decent" (in the English sense) job of defending the fort), yet we struggle past 3 pages here! Where's the food-fight!! mentality?

I would not second the "Shame on the..." comment though, like climate change, it is a reality of the world we live in - nothing is sacred any more, not even "private" conversations. As a scientist, why can't I tell to a mate that a competitor is a "plonker" in a private email, and plot to reveal his flaws in a future rebuttal?

I was up late last night and linked into this story early, even had time to explore the FTP site where the FOI2009.zip first appeared. I don't know why that Russian guy's FTP site ended up hosting the file - it was pretty unremarkable - had a certain amount of stuff for gamers, a bit of mainstream porn, some downloaded music, images and videos, some Linux and other OS stuff, as well as some personal images from the host's latest vacation, I guess - certainly nothing to show that this was some committed hacker intent on destroying the AGW political momentum - I guess that his webspace was just a convenient vehicle for the file.

The actual file content (which will be published elsewhere in fragments ad nauseam...) was also unremarkable, except, possibly, for the content that was not contained within it, if anything. I doubt that any of the published content was faked or embellished, but that there were possibly chunks removed, missing and possibly embarrassing to several individuals, who may be currently considering their futures...

I'd look to a slighted lover if I were (close to the focus of this attack) at CRU, and short of committing suicide (if I were that vulnerable), I would make sure the police nailed the mole before any real damage was done.

[PersianPaladin]

Quote

The scientists involved have also refused to comment on the record, although they insist privately that "the e-mails are being taken out of context and ... are part of the normal hurly-burly of conversations between scientists working on some of the most complicated questions of our times."

And...

Quote

Scientists are also weighing in on the controversy. Brian Angliss at Scholars & Rogues, for example, finds the claims of fraud "highly unlikely."

"I work in electrical engineering where I use words and phrases that, taken out of context, could be misinterpreted as nefarious by people who are ignorant of the context or who have an axe to grind," he explains. "For example, I regularly talk about 'fiddling with' or 'twiddling' the data, 'faking out' something, 'messing around with' testing, and so on. ... No matter how much the deniers scream, these emails aren't likely to reveal any evidence of scientific malfeasance. And even if they do, there's an entire globe of researchers whose independent research has bolstered the case that climate disruption is real and that it's predominantly caused by human civilization."

The blog at RealClimate.org has also had a look at the emails and points out, "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."

http://rawstory.com/...l-warming-hoax/


I wish the deniers would actually make a decent case. Their argument is as weak as ever.

Edited by PersianPaladin, 21 November 2009 - 06:35 .

[Roger J Smith]

This episode tends to reveal something I found out the hard way much earlier, that many people in the atmospheric sciences have a juvenile and arrested personality that makes them very suspicious of motivations of all who question their own orthodox views.

This has held back meteorology and climate science for the whole period of the 20th and early 21st centuries.

It encourages mediocrity and data manipulation, and discourages critical analytical thought. It also elevates second-raters and forces the best minds out of the science.

This has been going on for at least thirty years, and possibly a lot longer.

And this is what we have to show for it, a largely contrived theory supported on behalf of a political agenda that does not belong in science at all.

The only complete solution is to do a complete housecleaning of climate science from top to bottom, and ban the miscreants, but who's going to take charge of that?

Scientists are not accountable to anyone but each other. When politicians or religious leaders mess up, they are subject to censure and removal from office by various electorates. Sometimes this process doesn't work smoothly, granted, but there is a process and it often does work. With misbehaving scientists, if there are enough of them in collaboration with one another, they can keep all of their co-conspirators in power by mutually agreeing not to call each other on their fouls. Who else can remove them? Science is at the top of the public opinion pyramid. Scientists are the foremost "experts" in an expert class that the media turn to for guidance, and in this case, the politicians as well.

Meanwhile, those who might be capable of delivering a reformed climate science that would be trustworthy are probably people like myself who are so far removed from the mainstream that other sciences and government overseers would balk at our supposed lack of credibility.

So instead they will turn to fence-sitters who enabled this scam in the first place, probably knew all about it, and just have enough independence from the scam to pose as reformers. We will get a tiny bit of reform, but the theory will not die, it will mutate and reappear as something else when the furore dies down.

You watch, they will make a sacrificial offering of one or two unlucky chaps who said the wrong thing in an e-mail, and then it will be business as usual, more scare stories, more misleading videos, more fancy computer models showing fantasies of future climate that cannot be.

Didya hear, the Martians are coming.

[Solar Sausage]

It's interesting just how little interest is being shown by the real News-outlets???

One would hardly expect anything but fanfare from WUWT et al, however; it being their raison detre to discredit climate scientists?

[The PIT]

Had a look at some of the content at randomn. First of all this seems to be a come and grab raid as there's a lot of day to day normal stuff. Whoever took it doesn't seem very interested in the content otherwsie they'd have dumped the day to day stuff.

What I have seen though is.

1) Admission that solar cycle effects the climate.

2) Removal of the medievil warm period as it doesn't fit in properly.

3) Admission that the climate is within normal bounds and theres little evidence of man made warming.

4) With holding and altering data and I never said or told you to that mentatlity and delete those emails asap.

5) A man in the BBC to deal with awkward stuff. one email said how did he let that get through for instance.

6) Website who's sole aim is to pedal propaganda where any questions they can't answer is filtered out.


The way forward now is that all data is published and not kept behind close doors. Certainly the science is discredited and being open is the only forward.

It also seems posters on here are more interested in how wrong the hack is rather who wrong the methods are behind climate change. I.E altering the data.

Again another very good post by Rodger by the way.

All in all a real conspiracy which is right up PP street who seems to be barking up the wrong tree at the moment.

[Boar Wrinklestorm]

I think it is probably sensible and rational to wait a while and see what is contained in those emails.

A good move by the University of East Anglia (not the Hadley Centre, btw) is to verify that each and every character in the content of download is genuine/not-genuine and is untampered/tampered with. A good piece of software will do the trick in no time.

In the meantime I would find it highly unsurprising that some of the leading proponents of AGW have not, at some point, expressed doubts about what they are doing, why they are doing it, and whether or not their conclusions are right. Since this lot is supposed to be going back some 15 years - which you will all recall, back then, the science was even more controversial back then - then I suspect there will be private correspondence dealing with that.

One has to remember that people talk in private in a different way that they talk in their professional caoacity. Do you talk about your colleagues at work when you are at home with your spouse? If such conversations got out what would you and everyone else think? Private is, well, private - and there's a reason why we are all entitled to a private life.

Roger J Smith, on 21 November 2009 - 06:56 , said:

The only complete solution is to do a complete housecleaning of climate science from top to bottom, and ban the miscreants, but who's going to take charge of that?

I suppose I'd better get my CV together .... Do you think that now would be a good time to attempt to get the LI hypothesis published?

Edited by VillagePlank, 21 November 2009 - 10:31 .

[rob48]

http://www.guardian....s-leaked-emails


Bag Cat Out Of


Faces Egg On


Ha Ha Ha

[johnholmes]

VillagePlank, on 21 November 2009 - 10:25 , said:

what a sensible post