Global Warming Emails: Hack Raises Ethical Questions, Hoax And Scam Claims

Hundreds of emails related to global warming were hacked from the Climate Research Unit at East Anglia University in the United Kingdom recently and they're causing a firestorm for those interested in the topic of climate change.

Global warming deniers claim the documents suggest that scientists are pushing an "agenda" that humans are responsible for global warming.

In the hundreds of emails that were stolen and have been taken out of context, there isn't actual evidence of such a plot.

The hacked emails involve both American and European researchers, and according to the New York Times they include "discussions of scientific data and whether it should be released, exchanges about how best to combat the arguments of skeptics, and casual comments -- in some cases derisive -- about specific people known for their skeptical views."

The emails also suggest "bitter feelings" involved in the debate between those on both sides of the issue of global warming and the seriousness of the threat.

One reputable group of scientists, Real Climate, has posted a response on its blog to the allegations about what information is actually contained in the hacked emails:

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.

Despite the lack of evidence of some sort of conspiracy in the scientific community, this criminal activity has created fodder for right-wing groups and websites to promote their own agenda that global warming is not real. This comes at a time when international attention is more and more focused on the climate crisis in advance of the UN climate talks in Copenhagen in December.

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Comments

[Richard2]

08:24 PM on 11/29/2009

UPDATE: Professor Don Easterbrook left this comment on the ABC news site:

I’ve spent 4 decades studying global climate change and as a scientist I am appalled at Krugman’s cavalier shrugging off the Hadley email scandal as ‘just the way scientists talk among themselves.’ That’s like saying it’s alright for politicians to be corrupt because that’s the way they are. Legitimate scientists do not doctor data, delete data they don’t like, hide data they don’t want seen, hijack the peer review process, personally attack other scientists whose views differ from theirs, send fraudulent data to the IPCC that is used to perpetuate the greatest hoax in the history science, provide false data to further legislation on climate change that will result in huge profits for corrupt lobbyists and politicians, and tell outright lies about scientific data.

Interesting take on the scandal by an American professor.

Posted by: Don Easterbrook | Nov 29, 2009 1:57:05 PM

[ReedYoung]

11:26 PM on 11/29/2009

{
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2009/03/michaels-new-graph/
The point here is that if climate denialists focused their nitty-gritty questions on the issue of natural variations to the same extent they did with climate models, then you would see that forecasts based on climate models are far more reliable than forecasts made using the purely statistical, curve-fitting approach of time series analysis. The natural variations contain a large random component, depending on the specific variation – for example, a huge volcanic eruption six months from now would require new short-term climate predictions (but the long-term forecast would remain unchanged).

Thus, when Don Easterbrook gets up and says that the world is locked into a new cooling cycle “because of the PDO”, you should be able to tell him why that’s nonsense.
}

I found that Mr. Easterbrook is mentioned in over 14,000 separate results in Google Scholar, but the word that appeared most in the titles of the papers in the first page of results is "Pleistocene."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pleistocene

Ironically, understanding the last Ice Age is what motivated Arrhenius to explore the possibility of atmospheric gas concentration as a driver of climate, over 100 years ago. He was proven correct in the 1950s.
http://www.aip.org/history/climate/co2.htm

So Easterbrook's "ideas" about climate forcing mechanisms are as outdated as the mercury thermometer, the coal engine, and the horse and buggy.

[goodspkr]

09:09 PM on 12/01/2009

reed.this is absolute nonsense. The PDO is a natural occurance that is associated with cooling in the current phase. So why don't you tell me why you think this is nonsense.

[realpolitic]

08:43 PM on 12/03/2009

"While IPCC was predicting global warming, Easterbrook (2001) predicted three decades of cooling due to the Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO) shifting from its warm to cool phase. He correlated PDO with climatic changes over the last 500 years."

""The IPCC has predicted a global temperature increase of 0.6°C (1°F) by 2011 and 1.2°C (2°F) by 2038, whereas Easterbrook (2001) predicted the beginning of global cooling by 2007 (± 3–5 yrs) and cooling of about 0.3–0.5°C by 2040.""

Easterbrook is attempting to make a living as a denier and has been very wrong already as he demonstrates above.

[T Specter]

10:32 AM on 11/28/2009

Regarding the Hockey Stick controversy:

"Our results extend previous conclusions that recent Northern Hemisphere surface temperature increases are likely anomalous in a long-term context. Recent warmth appears anomalous for at least the past 1,300 years whether or not tree-ring data are used."

http://www.pnas.org/content/105/36/13252.full.pdf+html

[Luke3]

12:51 AM on 11/28/2009

Here is a list of 32,000 scientists, 9,000 of which have PhD's, who claim global warming is a total falsehood and a hoax.

http://www.petitionproject.org/

[T Specter]

01:03 AM on 11/28/2009

It would be nice if they had any peer reviewed research to back their specious claims.

[Richard2]

11:50 AM on 11/28/2009

It would be nice if the top IPCC members didn't conspire to block the publication of scientific papers that do not support their extreme CAGW position.

Those top IPCC member who have conspired to block the publication of independent articles should be fired from their positions now.

[Philclock]

05:28 PM on 11/27/2009

Nothing to hide?

Then in the Era of Transcendency, let's see all the emails, and have everyone explain them.

Whre is the NY Times, so ready to print confidential documents in the "public interest"?

[ReedYoung]

11:18 PM on 11/27/2009

I would like for the University of East Anglia to make all the stolen data publicly available on their own servers, for the same reason: to clear the air. Better yet, maybe all the climate scientists' whose correspondence was stolen will voluntarily set up their own BitTorrent ... I think they call it a "torrent," for a massive peer-to-peer file sharing network, to clear their own names.

[Calinative]

12:34 AM on 11/28/2009

Why would they do that? They might end up in jail as is. That would just incriminate them further.
Have you read the emails?

[ReedYoung]

03:32 PM on 11/28/2009

It's funny that you choose to mention jail. That is, traditionally, among the possible punishments for theft. So are monetary damages, more of which can also be assessed for defamation, which has been committed by Anthony Watts of wattsupwiththat.com and every other denier blog that parroted his "end of global warming" meme like fact. Wouldn't it be funny if all their ad revenue during the time that they hosted the stolen data had to be surrendered to climate scientists personally, for libel and slander?

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/nov/20/climate-sceptics-hackers-leaked-emails
{
A spokesperson for the University of East Anglia 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."
}

[jeff90125]

03:42 PM on 11/27/2009

I never bought into the Global Warming theory. I have looked at a lot of evidence and have come to reasonable conclusions. Yes, it is true that the earth has been warming for a few years. When I was i grade school they were teaching us that another ice age was on it's way.

The Earth naturally fluctuates in temperature somewhat, mostly due to changes in cloud cover (you know, that nasty greenhouse gas, dihydrogen monoxide). More clouds = less sunlight warming the planet, less clouds = more sunlight warming the planet.

To say that Carbon dioxide is the culprit is ludicrous. When there is more carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, plants grow quicker and bigger. they absorb more CO2 and give off more oxygen. When it comes to CO2, nature is self regulating.

Take into consideration that Greenland was once green and you begin to realize that the earth has been warmer in the past and has recovered naturally.

I'm not saying we should not work on clean energy solutions. I'm all for generating ones own power needs. I'd rather not pay the power company for electricity. I'd rather spend my money elsewhere than on heating my home. Less pollution is always a good thing. We just don't have a crisis.

[ReedYoung]

11:31 PM on 11/27/2009

LOL!

"When I was i grade school they were teaching us that another ice age was on it's way."
The global cooling hoax was only Newsweek and Time getting carried away, portraying one legitimate paleoclimate study's long-term prediction as impending doom. The authors of that very study knew, and have since said on the record, that Newsweek and Time were full of crap. No scientist bought into that and it was never taught in any school. For Zeus' sake, at least correct your talking points to have an element of truth left in them.

For decades, most scientists believed atmospheric carbon dioxide could never be a big deal. But that hasn't been true since the 1950s. Now we know for a fact that it does cause a greenhouse effect,

http://www.aip.org/history/climate/co2.htm

... and we know exactly how much that effect is.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/06/090610154453.htm

In other words, the science is settled.

[Calinative]

12:38 AM on 11/28/2009

Climate scientist Stephen Schneider makes an appearance in this one. Very informative. Very scary.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i4SPY-TlYGE

[CrittersRTasty]

09:39 AM on 11/28/2009

It's certainly settled in your mind.

[T Specter]

01:15 AM on 11/28/2009

Here's the truth concerning your "Ice Age" lie:
http://climateprogress.org/2007/09/27/james-hansen-ice-age-myth/

[richarcm]

10:07 AM on 11/26/2009

I love how the far left, when proven to be liars, simply suggest that they are being taken 'out of context'. I would have to say that those emails are pretty incriminating. Not that most of the world isn't catching onto the blatant agenda behind this obviously fake attempt to scare you into accepting larger government anyways...

[lbsaltzman]

10:21 PM on 11/26/2009

The e-mails were written by scientists. Your post shows that you are confusing science and politics. As far as I can tell nothing in the posts reveals the political opinions, if any, of the scientists in question. The denialist blogs will yammer on about this for weeks to come, but like every other demented conspiracy theory it will slowly fade into the backgrounds where the flag will be waved by the true believers of this nonsense. The science is sound, and nothing in these e-mails proves otherwise. There is no conspiracy amongst scientists, and for the record Americans did land on the moon, and the attack on the World Trade Center was not a government conspiracy. Also Darwin's Theory of Evolution is on as good scientific ground as can be. This is also true of the theory of Anthropogenic Global Warming.

Finally before you jump on the word "theory" look up its' scientific meaning.

[CrittersRTasty]

09:44 AM on 11/28/2009

Whether or not any of "this science is sound" these emails make plain that there have been attempts to control the release of information. The obvious intent was to make ALL the data appear to support the popular claim of AGW.
No matter which side of this discussion you find yourself on, anyone who doesnt think that these emails have hurt that cause is not paying attention.

[lff]

07:55 AM on 11/26/2009

Conspiracy? Probably not - but the emails demonstrate that much of the argument for AGW is more religious than scientific.

lff

[T Specter]

01:09 AM on 11/28/2009

Except they don't.

Try again or your corporate check will bounce.

[Justtellthetruth]

09:49 PM on 11/25/2009

The thing is, there is no grand conspiracy. It appears to be a case of "group think" on the part of these scientists, and that is proven almost beyond a shadow of a doubt by their emails. That does not disprove Global warming, but it casts a BIG shadow on the leading proponents of the man made case, and hurts the science that will prove it one way or the other.

People are dying in Iraq every day because of the same sort of group think.

[ReedYoung]

10:25 PM on 11/25/2009

"That does not disprove Global warming, but it casts a BIG shadow on the leading proponents of the man made case, and hurts the science that will prove it one way or the other."

In 250 words or less, what is proven and what remains to be proven about global warming?

[Justtellthetruth]

11:59 PM on 11/25/2009

The earth is getting warmer. Computer models of the earths weather systems seem to indicate that man made Co2 plays a role.

It would seem, however, that I just learned that the people responsible for creating some of the most influential findings, using computer modeling, do not want anyone who disagrees with them to see either their model (and the assumptions that describe it), or the data that they used to feed their model.

It would also seem that these guys would rather ruin someones career through collusion than allow them to print findings contrary to theirs in respected journals, black ball journals that they themselves have published in the past if they do not back their papers or publish papers that are contrary to their findings.

These researchers lead the world in climate research related to man made global warming and have HUGE influence at the UN conferences.

They should ( and every one here should expect that ) they would be as transparent as possible, and BEG people, ESPECIALLY people who are either skeptical or at least impartial to replicate their findings, using PRECISELY the same computer models. They should be, as responsible scientists, BEGGING people to test every one of their assumptions, their methods of data analysis, and so forth, until they are either satisfied or not. Either way, science advances.

There is NEVER a legitimate reason to quash dissent orprevent replication of studies in real science. That is why I am so disappointed and worried.

[ReedYoung]

11:16 AM on 11/29/2009

"There is NEVER a legitimate reason to quash dissent or prevent replication of studies in real science. That is why I am so disappointed and worried."

Is there ever a legitimate reason to steal? What exactly, in your mind, justified the act of theft before it occurred? In other words, I'm asking you to ignore the data which has been stolen, and explain, based on what was available prior to that, how you knew, or how you suppose the data thieves knew, that any "untoward" communications were there to be discovered.

Because if they didn't really already KNOW that something was very wrong, then the theft was just an unlawful "fishing expedition" and an unethical shot in the dark, wasn't it?

[Richard2]

10:37 PM on 11/25/2009

The idea that the Climategate scandal will hurt all of science is greatly overstated. Much of the climate skepticism is coming from people with the highest respect for the scientific method, and for ethical professional conduct in all fields of work. These skeptics have sensed the absense of the normal scientific process in global warming research. These skeptics are seeking the introduction of traditional scientific methods and ethics into climate research.

The Climategate scandal could lead to a rebirth of respect for scientific research, if most scientists vigorously speak out about the ethical problems revealed by the CRU e-mails and computer files. Let's hope so.

[Justtellthetruth]

11:21 PM on 11/25/2009

I would never suggest that this scandal will hurt "science", but it WILL cast a real doubt upon the science that has touched these particular researchers work, whether deserved or not, because it seems clear that they are working hard to protect their findings from further scrutiny, and would black ball journals, ruin peoples careers and break the laws pertaining to the freedom of information act to do so.

Any scientist worth their salt would be looking forward to sceptics testing their work. If it stands up, all the better. If it does not, science advances.

[lbsaltzman]

10:32 PM on 11/26/2009

What ethic problems do you see? Just charging ethical problems without providing details smacks of McCarthyism. Secondly, I have yet to see more than one or two scientists with anything remotely like relevent credentials challenging global warming with serious scientific evidence. Those handful of deniers are arrayed against thousands of hardworking scientists who have been involved in decades of difficult and painstaking research to make the case.

[friedfish2718]

09:34 PM on 11/25/2009

From ClimateDepot:

The New 'Deniers': UK Greenie George Monbiot, grand poobah of British global warming society:
'Most of the environmentalists I know have gone into denial' --
'Pretending the climate email leak isn't a crisis won't make it go away'

From http://blogs.news.com.au/heraldsun/andrewbolt:

'Manufacturing conensus: why Climategate hurts the warming faith'

Incorrect. It should be

'Manufacturing conensus: why Climategate hurts the CACA faith'
CACA (catastrophic anthropogenic climate alteration).

[realpolitic]

11:30 AM on 11/26/2009

Yes, funny how those sneaky climatologists got the Arctic ice and mountaintop glaciers around the world to melt, the seas to rise and warm and acidify, and temperatures to climb to fool us about their scheme!!!

[blueskybigstar]

02:56 PM on 11/25/2009

I was recently confronted with a question I could not answer. I have in the past wondered what seems obvious to me, are the scientists considering the direct heat released from the burning of the fossil fuels? Or the fact that roads are made of asphalt that is black, thus causing increased heat released by the sun?

Those are my questions. This next one is the one I could not answer assuming that its premise is true:

Why are the poles of other planets in our solar system losing their ice caps too? Remember that the ice on very cold planets is methane.

Is the premise true?

[ReedYoung]

04:38 PM on 11/25/2009

No, there is no evidence on other planets that "global warming" is happening everywhere in the Solar System. Deniers tried and failed to find evidence of that.
http://www.grist.org/article/mars-and-pluto-are-warming-too
"‘Mars and Pluto are warming too’—No they aren’t—and what if they were?"

The answer to your other question is yes, scientists are considering the direct effects of industrial heat as well. Among other things, it means that nuclear power is not a good idea, because even if no carbon dioxide was released in its construction, it is an enormous heat source.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/07/090713085248.htm
"Trapping Carbon Dioxide Or Switching To Nuclear Power Not Enough To Solve Global Warming Problem, Experts Say"

[guinganbresil]

10:28 AM on 11/26/2009

Any thermodynamic cycle will reject heat into the environment!

There is no free lunch. Any conversion of energy to electricity will have some impact on the environment. Here is an example: Solar. At best ~45% efficient. The good ones use exotic materials (Gallium Arsenide etc.) They consume land (granted rooftops might be available.) If you look at them the are black - the ~55% they do not convert will go into heat that would otherwise be reflected. If you remember the Secretary Chu at one point had floated the idea of painting roofs white... If you use concentrators and a thermodynamic cycle (like a Sterling engine, steam cycle) for larger plants, you have the same Carnot heat rejection you would see with coal, oil, natural gas and nuclear. Do get me started on people falling off roofs trying to install and maintain them... What is the disposal plan? Are we just going to leave them up on the roofs until the houses come down? There are many ugly defunct rooftop panels on houses in my neighborhood put in under Carter... Then who pays for the disposal of hazardous components?

I am not saying solar shouldn't be in the toolbox. It should. It is not a panecea.

http://news.cnet.com/Solar-cell-breaks-efficiency-record/2100-11395_3-6141527.html

[realpolitic]

01:40 PM on 11/25/2009

Poor deniers! They can not point to the research to deny climate change or any of the climate variables around the world, such as mountaintop glaciers melting, the ocean warming, oceans acidifying and rising, or Arctic ice melting. All they are left with is to look at decade old emails and ciaim fraud.

[guinganbresil]

10:09 AM on 11/26/2009

Is it CO2? That part is a bit weak. Cause and effect... OLR is going up with CO2...

http://www.isprs.org/publications/related/ISRSE/html/papers/332.pdf

[realpolitic]

11:33 AM on 11/26/2009

I thought another blogger told you that the co2 buildup results in a release of more OLR or something along those lines. I won't be convinced until you get an objective opinion from the site or someone with scientific credentials.

[ReedYoung]

02:19 PM on 11/28/2009

I'm sure I can find it in one of the referenced works in their bibliography, or on the public websites of the satellites they used, but it would have been more convenient if they had referred to specific wavelengths. Like "visible," "ultraviolent," "microwave" and "radio," the term "longwave" refers to a considerable *range* of wavelengths, or frequencies. This matters because carbon dioxide and water have different emission frequencies in the longwave section (and all sections, but heat means infrared, aka longwave, so that's the section of interest here) of the electromagnetic spectrum, and the Russian paper is written for an audience that already knows whether the results are more relevant to water vapor concentration or to carbon dioxide, or hypothetically to some other greenhouse gas, perhaps methane or nitrous oxide. So, we can't make anything of the paper itself unless we're all professional climate scientists, in which case we'd be mouthing off in the professional journals, not Huffington Post, so we have to look around for some background information.

[realpolitic]

01:22 PM on 11/25/2009

"The widely posted Climate Research Unit e-mails are being misrepresented by climate change deniers as evidence that the science supporting human-caused global warming is fatally flawed or, worse, corrupt. By my reading, these informal communications among several leading scientists represent no more than banter among colleagues working to address vexing, data-interpretation challenges and reflect very human reactions to the intense political criticism under which they were working. They are an out-of-context peek into how scientists actually interact, revealing agreements, conflicts, personal feelings and frustration at misrepresentation and shoddy science. Furthermore, most of the scientific controversies discussed years ago in these e-mails are now largely resolved in the open literature."

Donald F. Boesch, an oceanographer, is president of the University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science and Vice Chancellor for Environmental Sustainability for the University System of Maryland

http://views.washingtonpost.com/climate-change/panelists/donald_boesch/2009/11/a_purposeful_distraction.html

[power1]

01:21 PM on 11/25/2009

You realize that CO2 is necessary for life to exist on earth?

[empiricalWeb]

06:12 PM on 11/25/2009

You really have no concept of what is going on do you? Glad you could chime in right after your 8th grade biology class. How about you do a little more in depth research, and chime back in 10 years from now, kiddo.

[lily64]

09:23 AM on 11/25/2009

Interesting the difference in stories and comments depending on the publication being read. Left leaning says of course there is nothing being hidden, while right leaning says it's a conspiracy. I think it's somewhere in the middle with big business (and clearly Gore, who recently acknowledged publicly that he's made millions on GW) making billions of dollars and forcing regulations that probably are not necessary, not to mention that Mr. Gore also feels no obligation to heed the actions he screams at everyone else to take to reduce emissions. which should be a "light bulb" to the millions of "followers" he has. Take a look at the number of dissenting scientists that has increased dramatically over the last two years or so here: http://epw.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=Minority.Blogs&ContentRecord_id=10FE77B0-802A-23AD-4DF1-FC38ED4F85E3. The more data that is presented to scientists, the more are dissenting. I suspect that there is much more to this story than we are still seeing and I guess will have to wait to see it all unfold.

[realpolitic]

01:17 PM on 11/25/2009

"The impressive thing about this conspiracy is that they managed to convince the planet's glaciers, sea ice, and hydrological cycles to play along."

----Bill McKibben who wrote the first book for a general audience on global warming in 1989. A scholar in residence at Middlebury College

[ReedYoung]

04:30 PM on 11/25/2009

The more scientists that find their names in Inhofe's fraudulent document, the more demand that he remove their names, or correct his citations of their work. He's got nobody left but unemployed former weathermen and unpublished wannabe scientists.

[goodspkr]

09:12 AM on 11/25/2009

Here is a very interesting article. If you are a believer and want to say this is nothing, this should be a revelation to you. If you are a skeptic and think it disproves AGW entirely, you will be disappointed.

Here's the money quote (although there are many others)

"And that's what Climate Gate is about. A political imperative pushed scientists into making ever more desperate professional choices on what data to include in their studies, what methods to use to analyse that data, which media sources would give them preferred and friendly treatment, and focussed them on a politcal, not scientific, imperative."

You can read the whole thing here.

http://www.examiner.com/examiner/x-9111-SF-Environmental-Policy-Examiner~y2009m11d21-Evidence-of-a-desperate-push-to-pump-global-warming-up-and-up

[realpolitic]

01:18 PM on 11/25/2009

"The impressive thing about this conspiracy is that they managed to convince the planet's glaciers, sea ice, and hydrological cycles to play along."

----Bill McKibben who wrote the first book for a general audience on global warming in 1989. A scholar in residence at Middlebury College

[lff]

09:22 PM on 11/26/2009

Well, what would you expect him to say? He has a book to sell.

lff