ClimateGate: The 6 Most Dubious Claims About The Supposed "Global Warming Hoax"

A few weeks ago, hackers broke into the emails of one of the Climate Research Unit of The University of East Anglia, and climate skeptics have been having a field day making mountains out of molehills about what the emails contain. The verdict on global warming is in -- it's caused by humans and it is happening and nothing in the emails challenges that. However, with the internet abuzz about what has been labeled "ClimateGate," we thought we should set the record straight about the rumors, lies and insinuations about what the emails actually contain -- and what they "prove" about climate change. "ClimateGate" itself is a misnomer. Perhaps the nickname should be "SwiftHack" for the way people with political agendas have "swiftboated" the global warming reality. As world attention turns to the climate conference in Copenhagen this December, this email hack acts as a distraction from the huge task at hand of getting world leaders to commit to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. As professor Richard Somerville says, "We're facing an effort by special interests who are trying to confuse the public."

Check out our slideshow and pick what you think the most dubious claim that is being spread by skeptics about the emails.

Manipulating Data

CLAIM: Scientists have manipulated data.



Skeptics have been pointing to an email from scientist Phil Jones where he said he used a "trick" with his data. As climate expert Bob Ward writes, "Scientists say 'trick' not just to mean deception. They mean it as a clever way of doing something -- a short cut can be a trick." RealClimate also explained that "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 good way to deal with a problem', rather than something that is 'secret', and so there is nothing problematic in this at all."

comments(1057)

Most Dubious Claims (Current Rank: loading...)

Harmless Dangerous

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

Now Make Your Own Top 5

And Share with Your Friends

Average rating: loading... out of 10

Most Dubious Claims

loading...

Most Dubious Claims

 | Become a fan

Picked These as the Top 5 Slides in the Slideshow

Most Dubious Claims

Users Who Voted on this Slide

loading...

loading...

HuffPost Community Top 5 Slides:

«»

 | Become a fan

Most Dubious Claims

 

Get HuffPost Green On Facebook and Twitter!

Comments

[Justtellthetruth]

10:52 AM on 03/01/2010

36,000 UK physicists are outraged by the "trick" that is dismissed by this article.

From the register, uk

The body representing 36,000 UK physicists has called for a wider enquiry into the Climategate affair, saying it raises issues of scientific corruption. The Institute of Physics doesn’t pull any punches in the submission, one of around 50 presented to the Commons Select Committee enquiry into the Climategate archive. The committee holds its only oral hearing later today.

The IOP says the enquiry should be broadened to examine possible "departure from objective scientific practice, for example, manipulation of the publication and peer review system or allowing pre-formed conclusions to override scientific objectivity."

It deplores the climate scientists’ "intolerance to challenge" and the "suppression of proxy results for recent decades that do not agree with contemporary instrumental temperature measurements."

The physics institute observes that "unless the disclosed emails are proved to be forgeries or adaptations, worrying implications arise for the integrity of scientific research in this field and for the credibility of the scientific method as practised in this context".

[Shan Wells]

01:10 PM on 03/04/2010

This same groups has stated unequivocally that Climate Change is real and dangerous.

I'm still waiting for an answer to the question I posed to you last time, Just Tell- why do you choose to believe the IOP when they are saying something you like, but not when they say something you disagree with?

[Justtellthetruth]

10:50 AM on 03/01/2010

Your first example is a straw man argument.

The "Trick" does involve obfuscation of data, just not in the silly way that is originally presented. In fact, in order to understand the shoddy science that the "trick" represents, you must actually dig a great deal deeper into the science, and actually try to UNDERSTAND the disingenuous and misleading explaination given here to try to dismiss it.

So here goes. Tree ring data after 1960 begins to be no longer directly related to temperature for some completely unknown reason. In fact, it seems to indicate DECREASE in temperatures, rather than an increase. when added to other similarly shaky proxies, that data, in unadulterated form, would create a graph that would not be very alarming looking, and therefore disappoint all those politicians and groups who send all the grant money, so obviously, it MUST be changed (even though that is the true measure of the reliability of tree ring data).

So, the "trick" was to use real thermometer since 1960, and graft that onto the tree ring data, so that instead of a decrease, it shows an increase, in keeping with the predetermined conclusion.

This presupposes that the tree ring data, although completely unreliable now, has NEVER been unreliable in the past, and therefore is a good measure of whether or not this is the warmest period in 2000 years.

That is so statistically bent and scientifically unprofessional that it make 36,000 UK physicists call for an inquiry. See next post.

[Shan Wells]

01:28 PM on 03/04/2010

Not quite. You're right that the proxies and the actual temperatures as determined from actual records diverge- the proxies show decline, the actual temps show increase.

The solution was to show the decrease in temperature called by the proxies, then add the ACTUAL temperatures which we know to be right. The reconstruction data and the actual data are plotted together. Nothing is hidden.

That's the trick.

Lastly, you are yourself admitting that the actual temperature since 1960 show a dramatic spike. Does that not prove warming?

more here: http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2008/09/progress-in-millennial-reconstructions/

[realpolitic]

03:27 AM on 01/03/2010

Well, climate change deniers are too lazy to actually read the science so they must go from one conspiracy theory to the next. Not long ago it was some Yamal tree ring data and then that was forgotten. Whenever a conspiracy comes up they forget the old and advance to the new one all the while claiming the science is a hoax, although they never bother to try to understand it. They are servants of whatever their right wing masters tell them.

[little old lady]

01:42 AM on 01/03/2010

This story is getting pretty old by now. It's 2010! Time to move on to new creations.

[Richard2]

05:04 PM on 12/26/2009

"Hide the decline" involved not clearly reporting that tree ring data showed a sharp decline in temperatures during the last half of the 20th Century, which conflicted with actual temperature measurements.

Such reporting would likely raise the question of how accurate older tree rings were as proxies for temperature gauges hundreds or thousands of years ago.

Hiding the decline from readers was an act of deception, meant to mislead people about the tree ring data. The "blended" line provided the false impression that the recent tree ring data was consistent with actual temperature measurements.

Having deliberately and openly misled readers about the tree ring data, by "hiding the decline" why would anyone trust such a scientist regarding any other data presentation? Therefore, the IPCC reports are no longer credible. One part of them has been proven deliberately misleading, and no climate scientists objected at the time to misleading the public.

[goodspkr]

02:13 AM on 01/03/2010

Well said.

[realpolitic]

03:35 AM on 01/03/2010

"The "decline" in the email referred to a decline in global temperatures based on unreliable tree-ring data, but instrumental temperature data do not show a decline in global temperatures. Penn State scientist Michael Mann "said his trick was to combine data from tree-ring measurements, which record world temperatures from 1,000 years ago until 1960, with actual temperature readings for 1961 through 1998" because "scientists have discovered that, for temperatures since 1960, tree rings have not been a reliable indicator." CRU scientist Phil Jones, who wrote the email in question, has also stated that it is "well known" that tree ring data "does not show a realistic trend of temperature after 1960." RealClimate.org's staff, which is comprised of several working climate scientists, similarly stated:"

"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") and has been discussed in the literature since Briffa et al in Nature in 1998. 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."

http://mediamatters.org/research/200912080018

[jparker782]

11:26 PM on 12/23/2009

In case you haven't seen it: Jon Stewart Daily Show Climategate: http://selfdeprecate.com/video/stewart-daily-show-climategate/

[guinganbresil]

08:24 PM on 12/20/2009

If CO2 is 'trapping' more heat then less should be escaping to space.

The funny thing is that the Earth has been rejecting more heat - the outgoing long wave radiation has been going up as measured by satellites.

CO2 is not the cause of temperature variation we have seen recently.

[goodspkr]

09:40 AM on 12/26/2009

Well said. Very simple and it should be something anyone can understand.

CERES/ERBE measurements show this.

There is no hot spot in the troposphere as the IPCC report says there should be.

And recently there has been questions in Australia, Russia and New Zealand about man made warming in their reported temperatures. In other words, if you look at the raw data there is no increase in temperature over the past 30 years, but if you look at "corrected" data you will see an increase in temperature.

[realpolitic]

08:26 AM on 01/05/2010

You mean Rush Limbaugh is over in Russia, Australia, and New Zealand asking questions? New Zealanders have to accept the climate refugees from the Tuvalu Islands who are going under water with rising sea levels, so they might have a hard to believing there is no climate change. Australia is in the grip of its worst drought in instrumental record because of climate change.

[Libertyworld]

09:15 PM on 12/13/2009

Sorry, something went wrong with the link:
http://bit.ly/7dxgX

And here it is in non-shortened form:
http://www.geocraft.com/WVFossils/greenhouse_data.html

[Ronbo124]

03:33 PM on 12/18/2009

Global warming is primarily a problem of too much carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. This carbon overload is caused mainly when we burn fossil fuels like coal, oil and gas or cut down and burn forests. There are many heat-trapping gases (from methane to water vapor), but CO2 puts us at the greatest risk of irreversible changes if it continues to accumulate unabated in the atmosphere. There are two key reasons why.

CO2, more than any other climate driver, has contributed the most to climate change between 1750 and 2005. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change issued a global climate assessment in 2007 that compared the relative influence exerted by key heat-trapping gases, tiny particles known as aerosols, and land use change of human origin on our climate between 1750 and 2005. By measuring the abundance of heat-trapping gases in ice cores, the atmosphere, and other climate drivers along with models, the IPCC calculated the net increase (or decrease) in the amount of energy reaching Earth’s surface attributable to that climate driver. Positive values represent average surface warming and negative values represent average surface cooling. CO2 has the highest positive of all the human-influenced climate drivers compared by the IPCC. Other gases have more potent heat-trapping ability molecule per molecule than CO2, but are simply far less abundant in the atmosphere and being added more slowly.

[Libertyworld]

09:12 PM on 12/13/2009

Pardon me, but apparently, only about 0.28% of the greenhouse effect is human caused.
That's right, about 1/4 of 1%.
Just go here for a closer, scientific look at the numbers:
http://bit.ly/7dxgX
Now what does that make those so zealously frothing up?

[rod1575]

05:18 PM on 12/13/2009

To all climategate deniers out there!

This website explains the "trick" used in the climategate emails by Steve McIntyre
I think you will find it quite interesting.

http://climateaudit.org/2009/12/10/ipcc-and-the-trick/

And here is another one about the famous debunked "Hockey Stick"

http://theautopsy.wordpress.com/2009/12/11/more-fallout-from-climategate/

Enjoy Warm-mongers!

[MrJohnQPublic]

06:31 PM on 12/11/2009

This is how the skeptical media is treated at Copenhagen:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aUtzMBfDrpI&feature=player_embedded


Makes you wonder who is really behind the Copenhagen Summit.

[conscious1]

11:25 AM on 12/13/2009

All the money involved is to be run through the world bank. Cap and trade is a scam that will benefit the biggest polluters. It is a way for them to profit from the coming market decline as green technologies become cheaper due to economies of scale. If 1% of what they are going to spend was invested in some of these technologies we would have clean energy in 5 years. http://peswiki.com/index.php/Congress:Top_100_Technologies_--_RD

[Ravens talons]

09:19 AM on 12/11/2009

The part of this, and similar, articles that irks me is that they explain away "trick" as if it matters in any way. The use of the word "trick" is the least controversial part of this email. The controversial words are "hide" and "decline". I have yet to hear any of these apologists try to explain how science uses these terms differently than anyone else. "Trick" as a term to describe a clever method is common in normal conversation. I, as an English speaking non-scientist, understood how "trick" was being used in the sentence with no explanation needed. Such a use in science is not radical, deviant, nor even relevant. What is relevant is what the "clever method" did. That is described in the same email, and that is "to hide the decline". My question to people who are attempting to explain away these emails is simple. What is the acceptable scientific explanation for these two words in this context? No dismissal, no spin, just tell me how hiding a decline is acceptable in terms of honest reporting of rising temperatures. I'm proposing the theory that not a single one of you can do it.

[Mark Verschell]

01:52 PM on 12/11/2009

Seriously? Okay, remember that this is a private email (not for public consumption), and so the exchange is often filled with inside jokes. The term "hide the decline" is one of these, and is something that has been out there since 1998. In addition, the term "hiding" would be better expressed as "hiding in plain sight", and is similar to the idea that if you close your eyes, then no one can see you.

As simple put as possible, the whole "hiding" thing has to do with using tree ring data to reconstruct paleo-climate records. Obviously, we don't have direct measures of temperature of ANY kind prior to the last couple of centuries, so we use proxy data (indirect measurements). The latewood tree ring density data matches temperature data fairly well up to about 1960, but then diverges. The reason for this divergence is still being debated, but the fact that this data was left out of the original analysis (published in Briffa et al., Nature 1998) is common knowledge - and was reported in the referred article. Should this data be left off? It's debatable, but there is certainly no conspiracy here.

Furthermore, is this at all relevant? There is no indication in the letter that this diagram of Phil's was EVER intended for publication. Diagrams and theories are often sent around, trying to get to the deeper science (which is then refereed). This isn't even a smoking gun.

[Ravens talons]

05:12 PM on 12/11/2009

You still haven't indicated how "decline" figures into it. In addition you bring up an interesting point. The divergence of the rings. If there is an unexplained divergence, than the matching could be a fluke, and without explanation, the measurements are shown to be unreliable without further evidence. My point was that every article like this focuses on "trick", not "hide" which is a much more damning word and the explanation you come up with of an "inside joke" is tenuous.

We only have accurate measurements for the last 150 years thanks in no small way to the industrial revolution that is now being blamed as the source of the problem. Aside from that we have educated guessing about fractions of degrees, we know little about all the factors involved. Yet people are being asked to pay 2/3's of the world's economy to fix the problem. This is my issue with global warming. If the science is concrete, it is unassailable. If the concreteness is arrived at through assumption, supported by altering data and by discrediting any opposition as unreliable, then there is a serious problem. And you could say that saying one would rather delete the data rather than hand it over is not funny when you realize that when asked for the data, the reply was that it was deleted. Especially when the focus of a majority of the economy is at stake.

[conscious1]

05:43 PM on 12/10/2009

The first thing people should ask when looking at any issue is, who benefits? The beneficiaries of AGW theory are the world bank and centralized international control. The world bank is at the head of the banking oligarchy that controls the flow of money and economies world wide. They are responsible for creating the system where 90% of the worlds wealth is held by the top 1%. The predatory consolidation of financial power thats being sold as a finacial crisis is a nice example of their handywork. If your enjoying paying the gambling debts of wall street gamblers then I'm sure you will like giving up national wealth an sovereignty to a derivatives based cap and trade swindle. 50 billion dollars has been spent to buy AWG consensus. There is no shortage of people willing to do research for money. Anyone who has done studies knows that those paying for the research expect certain results. If those results are not forthcoming you don't get published and don't get anymore funding. How hard is it to rationalize a theory that purports to be about saving the planet with the kicker of taking on big oil? I was all for it even though I knew the science was bogus until I understood the control paradgm behind it. As for citations check out some of the 450 peer reviewed papers exposing the flaws of AGW theory. http://www.populartechnology.net/2009/10/peer-reviewed-papers-supporting.html

[StewartG]

09:56 PM on 12/09/2009

This IS just like the flat earthers of the middle ages and before. Geographers, astronomers, et al. all agreed that the earth being flat was settled science...

And then a few voyagers proved them wrong...

Hey, isn't global warming "settled science" too?

[wilray]

06:21 PM on 12/10/2009

Galileo said that the Earth revolved around the sun. Before him, Copernicus said the Earth revolved around the sun. Centuries before, him Omar Khayyam said the Earth revolved around the sun. The Catholic church suppressed Galileo as a heretic. The concept of a round Earth dates back to 6th century B.C. It was fully established by 3rd Century B.C. Religious doctrine and superstition kept a flat earth philosophy dominant. All the information was at hand for any explorer who chose to look.

Over 90% of all the scientist who ever lived are alive today. You confuse chemistry with alchemy. You confuse barbers with physicians. Scientist are defined by scientific method and scientific principle. The "scientists" who supported a Flat Earth theory used neither. What you call "settled science," I call doctrine, dogma, and superstition. When you need to have surgery, please go down to your local barber. If you survive it, feel free to join the Flat Earth Society; don't let actual science get in your way.

http://theflatearthsociety.org/cms/

[Ravens talons]

09:59 AM on 12/11/2009

First, Galileo did not massage the orbits of the planets to support his theory. He offered, as proof of his theory, the unrefined data. His theory matched observable patterns, and he could predict, with his theory, where planets would show up night after night. The opposing arguments relied on supposition, and used clever and complicated methods to prove themselves. Simply put- geocentric, circular orbits required constant data massaging and complicated models.

Second, where is your segue where geocentric as opposed to heliocentric orbits relate to flat earth theory?

Third, AGW advocates use complicated models, massage data, suppress the opposition to the point of destroyed careers and reputations. We have seen retroactive corrections of the models in order to get the models to match reality to prove the models as correct. We have seen flip-flopping reports about which year was warmest or coldest. We have seen dire warnings about global cooling 50 years ago become dire warnings about global warming now. We have even seen a complete failure of scientists to explain why warmer temperature is bad other than redefining coastlines. More species thrive in warmth than in cold. The supposed deniers have, at their simplest explanation, pointed out that temperatures fluctuate, Earth has been much warmer, carbon levels have been higher, and life went on. Indeed some of the warmer periods in history have often been the richest periods of life.

From my position, AGW advocates resemble the church more than they resemble Galileo.

[StewartG]

05:51 PM on 12/14/2009

-"The Catholic church suppressed Galileo as a heretic"...because the consensus was that the earth was flat, right?

Do you not see the correlation here? Anyone who's saying there's no manmade climate change is also seen as a heretic.

Settled science, right?

FYI- I didn't know science was ever "settled".

[MosesMa]

06:02 PM on 12/09/2009

This is simply an orchestrated attempt to "reframe" the conversation. Simply by calling it "ClimateGate" gives it a sense of scandal and coverup. The reality is that the "GATE" is a moniker that is the legacy of Richard Nixon and the original GATE, WaterGATE. The GOP will simply try to detach itself from the stigma of being the father of all GATEs by overusing it every chance they get, hoping it'll stick eventually stick on the Democrats.

The important thing to remember is that Richard Nixon committed a felony and had to resign to avoid becoming the first President to be successfully impeached. For this, the Republican party should actually feel shame, not indignation. When you add the track record of GW Bush, you have to arrive at the conclusion that Republicans simply do not make for successful Presidents.

[Ravens talons]

12:28 PM on 12/22/2009

You mean Republican presidents like Eisenhower, Lincoln, Reagan, Teddy Roosevelt... You post two examples and use it to paint with a wide brush. To date there have been 16 Republican Presidents, as opposed to 14 Democrat presidents. This is interesting in that the Democrat party is older by about 30 years. Oddly enough, history happened before Nixon and afterwards as well. Carter, anyone?

If you want to view history in terms of fitness as shown by success or longevity, Monarchy and Imperialism are much more stable and longer lasting than any democracy has ever been. And India's caste system is possibly the world's oldest social system, having survived through centuries and multiple changes in government styles.

[enoefx]

01:06 AM on 02/19/2010

Most irrelevant republican smear of the year.