In an event described by the Telegraph as Climategate, an unknown hacker broadcast hundreds of emails stolen from the databases of the Climate Research Unit in Norwich, UK (web site currently down due to increased traffic). These emails, which are both to and from the head of the CRU, Phil Jones, contain multiple references to manipulating research data, private doubts to the validity of man-made global warming, callous remarks regarding the health and safety of climate skeptic scientists, and a plan to manipulate the peer-review system to exclude any research that detracts from the case of man-made global warming. The CRU admitted that the leak is real and likely occurred four days ago. The hacker, who is only known as FOIA (presumably shorthand for Freedom of Information Act) released the files on a Russian list-serv with only the following two lines to describe the pilfered archive:
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.
While the CRU has admitted that the emails are legitimate, some climate scientists are coming to the defense of their outed colleagues. "It does look incriminating on the surface but there are lots of single sentences that, taken out of context, can appear incriminating," said Bob Ward, director of policy and communications at the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment. Ward said that the emails "might highlight behaviour that those individuals might not like to have made public... Let's separate out [the climate scientists] reacting badly to the personal attacks to the idea that their work has been carried out in an inappropriate way."
Professor Michael Mann of Penn State, who was featured in many of the climategate emails, said "I'm simply 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 that the perpetrators and their facilitators will be tracked down and prosecuted to the fullest extent the law allows." Professor Mann may be best known for the popular "hockey stick" graph that represents human made carbon-dioxide emissions vs global average temperature. The emails below could incriminate Professor Mann for deleting information owned by the government.
As the story only broke today, news agencies and blogs are still poring over each email and converting scientific terms for more understandable language. The following are a few of the key exchanges that climate skeptics say incriminate researchers around the world working with the CRU:
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Mainstream media is yet to weigh in on the implications of climategate, which encompass some of the most prominent scientists, organizations, and universities in the world. Containing hundreds of emails, it may take days for pro-global warming commentators and climate skeptics to extract what bits of useful information are contained within. Green groups like Treehugger were quick to point out the illegality of the way this research was obtained, though the CRU publicly stated that they are investigating that this may have not been hacked from their server, but leaked by a researcher. Greenpeace released a statement in defense of climate change, saying "if you looked through any organization's emails from the last 10 years you'd find something that would raise a few eyebrows. Contrary to what the skeptics claim, the Royal Society, the US National Academy of Sciences, NASA and the world's leading atmospheric scientists are not the agents of a clandestine global movement against the truth."
Weigh in:
Does this leak change your opinion on climate-change, peer-reviewed research, or the science behind global warming? Why or why not?
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