And the warm-mongers aren’t happy about it.
[Update a few minutes later]
Environmentalists exposed as liars. I’m shocked, shocked I say.
[Update a few minutes later]
Here’s more on the apparent fraud at the Climate Research Unit.
The problem is that the files and emails seem just too good to be true. A number of files seem to be smoking guns — revealing how to resist Freedom of Information Act requests for their data (which would both be scientific misconduct and actually illegal); long-term marketing plans on how to push the climate-change agenda; and discussions of how to pressure peer-reviewed journals to stop accepting papers that disagree with the “accepted” view of global warming.
In other words, just what the skeptics have been suggesting for years. It seems just too neat, and we don’t have independent verification of where the files came from. Someone who is willing to hack might also be willing to create fakes.
But then, the whole package is very large — 63 megabytes — and seems to be very internally consistent. Several people have already corroborated a number of the emails as being ones they wrote or received. The package also includes substantial data and computer programs, which are being explored as this is being written.
The best we can say right now is that we should keep our eyes on this. If these files are eventually corroborated and verified, it is a bombshell indeed — evidence that there has been a literal conspiracy to push the anthropogenic climate change agenda far beyond the science.
I wish I could say that I was surprised. Actually, I am, a little. I wouldn’t have thought they’d be this blatant about it, but it’s been clear for years that this was being driven by a non-science agenda.
As noted in comments, Jerry Pournelle has some thoughts today:
sounds to me as if climatologists are now admitting they have not the faintest idea of what is going on. I have a remedy for them. Study the data and refine the models. Stop assuming you already know the answers and start looking for better models….
But that’s no fun. It doesn’t give them an excuse to implement socialism via the green door.
[Afternoon update]
Here is more from James Delingpole:
The world is currently cooling; electorates are increasingly reluctant to support eco-policies leading to more oppressive regulation, higher taxes and higher utility bills; the tide is turning against Al Gore’s Anthropogenic Global Warming theory. The so-called “sceptical” view is now also the majority view.
Unfortunately, we’ve a long, long way to go before the public mood (and scientific truth) is reflected by our policy makers. There are too many vested interests in AGW, with far too much to lose either in terms of reputation or money, for this to end without a bitter fight.
But if the Hadley CRU scandal is true, it’s a blow to the AGW lobby’s credibility which is never likely to recover.
What I find delicious about this is (as always) the toxic brew of self-righteousness and hypocrisy. I don’t want to hear anyone, ever again, tell me that it’s “just about the science.”
[Mid-afternoon update]
A lot of discussion over at Slashdot.
The “smoking gun” in your article is the “trick” of adjusting tree ring data. According to RealClimate, this “trick” was discussed and approved of in published papers going back to 1998, and isn’t a “trick” at all, but rather a way to show both data sets (tree rings and instrumental) on the same graph. (On that graph they actually diverge.)
How would it be illegal for a British entity to refuse to comply with an American law (the Freedom of Information Act)?
Here’s what’s NOT in the 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. ”
Nor is there a motive listed.
Usually,
How would it be illegal for a British entity to refuse to comply with an American law (the Freedom of Information Act)?
Who said it was illegal?
the source quote says
“(which would both be scientific misconduct and actually illegal)”
That’s where he got the idea of “how would it be illegal” boss. Because the source says, “illegal.”
But in response, it CAN be illegal if a US firm or individual acting in concert with foreign entities for US public purposes refuses to divulge information that is covered by the FOIA.
Though that is really a very minor argument, IIRC. There was a discussion like this in a very different context sometime ago.
As for the main article. I really have no clue of how to take it. How pat the “hacked” data is, is well odd, but it’s consistency is even more odd. That’s a lot of data, and for the hacker to have found the right things, and have had it all in order in such a way suggests a whole hell of a lot more than some wastrel playing a game out of curiosity.
I would say that there is no doubt there was some “social” hacking at least, and more likely a deliberate “leak” that gathered the info into a convenient place for it to be “stolen.”
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) amd from
1961 for Keith’s to hide the decline
Hey Chris, please explain the hide the decline trick.
How would it be illegal for a British entity to refuse to comply with an American law (the Freedom of Information Act)?
It would be illegal for CRU to refuse to comply with the British Freedom of Information Act 2000: http://www.justice.gov.uk/guidance/freedom-of-information.htm
Chris, it might not be against the law for a Brit to break the US FOIA, but it might be if he breaks the UK FOIA. by deleting documents that he knows are subject to an FOIA request and advising colleagues to delete their copies of the documents.
D’ya think?
This looks more and more like a deliberate leak by an insider who had access to these files and knew what it all meant. Not “hacking” in any normal sense of the word.
Does anyone wonder why Chris can be relied on so thoroughly to defend any attack on the Liberal Order? Doesn’t he have any opinions of his own?
Chris got his talking points from Real Climate. Which is Michael Mann’s site.
A lot of what Michael Mann said that shows up in those e-mails is not flattering to him or the other scientists involved. I recommend you actually read what’s there rather then just absorb talking points via osmosis Chris.
Chris has plenty of opinions of his own. One of the opinions he holds is that screaming “You Lie!” based on a snippet of data that may (or may not) be the data stolen from a climate lab is questionable at best. Chris also wonders why Rand can be relied on to so thoroughly attack any part of the “liberal order.” Doesn’t he have any opinions of his own? /end snark/
Regarding the data – here’s the thing. CRU provides the data on their web site, free for the download. Anybody filing a Freedom of Information Act is either incapable of doing a Google search or looking for something other than data.
I actually don’t think global warming is something you believe in. It’s a matter of science, not belief, and right now the science points to some level of global warming due to carbon dioxide emissions. How much warming and what to do about it are certainly valid points of debate.
I actually don’t think global warming is something you believe in. It’s a matter of science, not belief, and right now the science points to some level of global warming due to carbon dioxide emissions.
Actually, it doesn’t necessarily do so (the earth seems to have been cooling, not warming, over the past decade, depending on what measure you use). This is what has the warm-mongers so upset.
Chris also wonders why Rand can be relied on to so thoroughly attack any part of the “liberal order.”
Perhaps because I think that much of it is misguided at best, and evil at worst?
Rand – yes, the Earth has cooled, or at least stopped warming, this decade. Considering it’s been warming since at least the end of the Little Ice Age (1850s) I’d hold the champagne.
On a personal note, I do not assign evil motives to people I disagree with. That’s why I get irritated when people who disagree with me assign to me evil motives. It’s a matter of simple courtesy.
Reason – I unfortunately don’t have the time to read 61 MB of emails. But if the worst you can find is one email about addressing one data factor (tree rings), then apparently there’s not much to see.
On a personal note, I do not assign evil motives to people I disagree with.
Neither do I. I only assign them to people who seem to have evil motives.
Y’all take a look at Jerry Pournelle’s “View” blog for today?
Some of the parts are starting to make sense. Jerry’s featured comment on View today is that the Climate Modelers and CO2 Mongers have always been saying “warming”, always.
The difference is that in the 1970’s there was an apparent, slight, cooling trend in the data, and the modelers and the data people were not singing from the same songbook. What has changed is that data people presented evidence on Warming (Hockey Stick), and so that the data people and modelers are making common cause.
It is starting to make more sense to me. During the Disco Era of Travolta, Bee Gees, Jimmy Carter, I was on the Caltech campus and made a nodding friendship with someone I crossed paths with now and then, and I once got to asking him what he did. What he did was climate modeling, and he was in emphatic terms telling me about the coming CO2 Warming Crisis, and (in the wake of the hand-wringing about Three Mile Island), that we need to get cracking building nuke plants (this is Caltech circa 1980).
So when the George Will’s of the world were talking about how “those scientists” were warning of cooling in the 1970’s, it now comes together. In the Disco Era, the data people and the modelers (like my friend from a sidewalk chat in Pasadena) were at cross purposes, so there were some scientists who “had it right” so to speak and had not changed their position.
My take on this is that if you emit enough CO2 into the atmosphere, projecting straight lines on the graph of fossil fuel use, deforestation, etc., the modelers have to be eventually right, although there are some people who dispute that, saturation of IR windows, putative negative feedback in tropical cloud formation, and so on. But the modelers don’t really accurately predict what is happening today, i.e. a 30% increase in CO2 rather than a 300% increase down the road, yet the data people (some data people) are screaming “The Warming is coming, the Warming is coming” at the top of their lungs, and there is some evidence that they doth protest too much.
Paul Milenkovic – the “model vs. data” has always been the problem. If you look at Venus, for example, clearly too much CO2 is bad. The problem is determining to what level of accuracy. On any geological scale, the difference between an Ice Age and the present climate is tiny.
I do think that running an open-ended experiment in adding CO2 to the atmosphere is equivalent to injecting yourself with an untested drug. Moreover, there are some strong geopolitical reasons to reduce our per-capita carbon emissions – at least the part coming from foreign oil.
“at least the part coming from foreign oil.”
I have a better idea. Develop all of our own resources. Less money to terrorists, more jobs. It’s win win!!
There is plenty of evidence of freezing out scientists and periodicals who don’t toe the AGW line.
Nonsense. Hiding the divergence problem of the handful of supposedly-accurate temperature proxies which were selected because they conveniently don’t show a MWP is outright fraud.
CO2 in Earth’s atmosphere IS a tested ‘drug’. Past eras with animals thriving at the time have had several hundred percent more CO2 content without runaway greenhouse hysterics.
As to gepoplitical concerns, just a debating point. I’ll take leftists concerns on that seriously when the DNC et. al. start rallying support for CO2 free nuclear power…to run all the new Prius et. al. autos.
And of course, this all sounds incredibly scientific:
Purging e-mails is part of the scientific method, no?
animals thriving at the time have had several hundred percent more CO2 content without runaway greenhouse hysterics. They also had deserts in what are now major food-producing states like Iowa.
Please don’t say “we’ll grow food in Canada” – much of northern Canada simply lacks viable soil (or any soil – Laurentian plate in northern Ontario.)
In short, the issue is not just CO2 levels, it’s the resultant climate, to include rain and pest populations. That part is what we’re most uncertain about.
“That part is what we’re most uncertain about.”
So let’s ruin some of the biggest economies in the world because we don’t know what’s going to happen.
“I do think that running an open-ended experiment in adding CO2 to the atmosphere is equivalent to injecting yourself with an untested drug. Moreover, there are some strong geopolitical reasons to reduce our per-capita carbon emissions – at least the part coming from foreign oil.”
First things last. There is not a perfect substitution of coal or nuclear-generated electric power for oil, but electricity can easily substitute for oil or propane in home heating, either through straight electric resistance heating, not a bad trade when oil is 3 dollars plus a gallon and electricity is inexpensive, or through various modes of heat pump. The cap-in-trade program, by making electricity expensive, will discourage the use of ground-sourced (“geothermal”) heat pumps, because there will no longer be low cost electricity to offset the high capital costs of the heat pump systems.
The reduction of CO2 emissions is going to make electricity expensive and drive the substitution in the other direction, the direction of importing more oil and using less coal. Expensive electricity is not a strategy for reducing oil imports.
I also just got through saying that “the dose makes the poison.” Why do you think I am disagreeing with you that a 3-fold increase in atmospheric CO2 has to have some kind of climate effect?
What I was also saying is that there is a kind of “Reefer Madness” in the approach to public awareness about CO2. You are in a way implying that because I am saying that showing Reefer Madness to kids is counterproductive, that kids perhaps have enough personal experience or watched their friends to know that the harm of illicit drugs is exaggerated, that I am advocating poisoning our youth by opening the flood gates of drugs upon them.
Reefer Madness is perhaps a good analogy to the environmental movement. These drugs are harmful and dangerous, but the harm and danger is exaggerated, this exaggeration in “drug resistance education” can backfire and get young people to think there is no harm or risk with these drugs at all, and yes, some of the people who point out that the harm is exaggerated favor making drugs legal, and some of the people favoring legal drugs are libertarians and other would simply like to use the drugs.
By runaway greenhouse hysterics; you are of course refering to nonsense like:
They also had deserts in what are now major food-producing states like Iowa.
Good luck trying to decipher that nugget of data from a science fiction writer.
And when that nonsense doesn’t work, note the shift:
In short, the issue is not just CO2 levels, it’s the resultant climate, to include rain and pest populations.
Why it is almost biblical in rhetoric. Massive floods. Swarms of pests. But hey, whatever you do, don’t refer to it as a religion nor call them believers…
Well, I’m frightened — God knows we haven’t ever had either of those things before.
Leland,
You forgot the part about “Dogs and Cats living together!”
BTW, it’s not 56 megabytes of data; it’s over 150 megabytes of data. That 56 MB figure is the compressed .zip file.
Bill Maron nailed it.
So let’s ruin some of the biggest economies in the world because we don’t know what’s going to happen.
There are worst things that can happen than an imagined possibility that the climate might go bad. It’s worth noting that the first (and perhaps only) conference to discuss the economic impact of global warming (sponsored by Prime Minister Blair) was held at this institute. Why should we trust those estimates now given the apparent agenda of the conference hosts?
Even if global warming doesn’t in itself ruin Western civilization, it’s worth remembering that this is only one item out of an avalanche of many. I could go into examples, but we’ve seen too many as it is. What happens when countries that didn’t buy into the green hysteria overtake us economically?
Ah, the power of group think and how they can hijack otherwise sensible people into committing egregious acts of disinformation.
Isn’t it funny how when it comes to Afghanistan the liberals dither and say let’s wait. Yet, when it comes to AGW it’s all about acting now, OMG the sky is falling, and demand we declare a war on breathing/farting.
I’d be willing to wager that most people deep down never really believed this crap. The altruistic politically correct claptrap that has been implanted into people’s skull instantly kicks in at the mere thought doubt and makes one kick at the dirt and mutter, “Yea, we’re killing the planet, man, it’s all our fault.” I agree though that this isn’t gonna really slow the AGW message down as much as we would like. Look at all the TV shows, the documentaries, the business people, and the politicians that got sucked into this PC vortex. They aren’t gonna instantly turn about on their proclamations without seeming like a hypocrite. My thing is, I think it takes more bravery to admit when one is wrong then to continually put on the self righteous mask. If anything humans are quite adept at pretending we even have clue on the half the crap we allege too.
I do think that running an open-ended experiment in adding CO2 to the atmosphere is equivalent to injecting yourself with an untested drug.
Give me a break. The human industrial component of the massive carbon cycle fluxes is rather modest, something like 6 Tg/yr, compared to 60 Tg/yr for fluxes to and from vegetation, and 140 Tg/yr to and from the ocean. Which is to say, a 10% increase in vegetation absoprtion, or 5% change in ocean absorption, would swamp the effect of humans. Of course, we have no idea if those things will happen, or if the response will make things worse, or if we could engineer those kinds of response in the direction we want. It’s all wild guesswork how the biosphere and geosphere will respond to fluctuations in CO2 levels.
But your analogy is totally bogus. It’s nothing like injecting yourself with an unknown drug. We know very well what CO2 does. Its effects on the biosphere are provably very benign. Aside from the theoretical impact on climate, you could not imagine a more harmless and “natural” gas to inject into the atmosphere.
A better analogy is eating (perhaps) too much sugar. It’s not like sugar has totally unknown, possibly awful effects. We know very well what it does. What we’re doing is possibly eating more sugar than we should, and gaining weight, with vague threats of diabetes and heart disease further down the road. The catastrophism inherent in your analogy is wholly unwarranted.
Moreover, there are some strong geopolitical reasons to reduce our per-capita carbon emissions – at least the part coming from foreign oil.
Sorry, no. Neutering the US economy to get rid of “dependence on foreign oil” is a Carter-era pseudo-mercantilist failed policy of the past, to coin a phrase. You do not increase your national security by destroying your economy, even if you thereby end up buying less foreign oil. You might as well suggest we just nuke ourselves back to the Stone Age. Then we’ll really stop important foreign oil! Sweet! Far more security, right? Ha ha.
Even the concept of the dangers of “dependence on foreign oil” is rather silly, I think. This FUD has been spread for 40 years, and there has yet to be a single case in which anyone can point to a clear-cut case of oil blackmail of the United States by some evil foreign dictator. Hasn’t happened. Isn’t going to happen. Those evil foreign dictators need the US market a lot more than the US needs the oil, because while we could do without their oil, albeit very painfully, they have nothing else to sell, and no one else who can pay as well for it. The Europeans don’t need that much oil, and the Chinese can’t afford to pay what we do. It’s more correct to say that the Middle East is addicted to American dollars than to say the United States is addicted to Middle Eastern oil.
But even if it were a problem, the obvious near-term solution is to drill for our own gas. See here, for example. Recent finds suggest as much as a century’s supply of natural gas on American soil. The obvious long-term solution is to build nukes, and seal up the entire generation of No Nukes people inside the containment building, to serve as shielding for the core.
Past eras with animals thriving at the time have had several hundred percent more CO2 content without runaway greenhouse hysterics.
The last time there was 450ppm of atmospheric CO2 (which is just 20% more than we have today) there was no surface ice on the planet that did not melt come summer. No glaciers, not even at the poles. Yes, there were animals; but none of them depended on freshwater irrigation for agriculture.
Chris Gerrib wrote:
Regarding the data – here’s the thing. CRU provides the data on their web site, free for the download. Anybody filing a Freedom of Information Act is either incapable of doing a Google search or looking for something other than data.
To use scientific terminology, this is bullshit.
CRU researchers have a long history of refusing to release their data. People have been trying to replicate the CRU’s claims for a decade, but that’s difficult to do when you don’t know what’s in the data sets.
“Even if WMO agrees, I will still not pass on the data. We have 25 or so years invested in the work. Why should I make the data available to you, when your aim is to try and find something wrong with it.”
— Phil Jones
The last time there was 450ppm of atmospheric CO2 (which is just 20% more than we have today) there was no surface ice on the planet that did not melt come summer. No glaciers, not even at the poles. Yes, there were animals; but none of them depended on freshwater irrigation for agriculture.
This is incorrect. If you go to the NASA ftp site for CO2 data you will find that 16 million years ago CO2 was as high (And it is not that high today either)
16 million years ago Antartica was glaciated (has been for ~30 million years). Also, the Himalayas were not there to change global atmospheric circulation patterns AND the Panama strait was ocean, which also changed global ocean circulation patterns.
Mencius Moldbug made a post on this subject, titled “Soviet Science”. This was made when he argued with a leftist priest,er… I mean “scholar”.
http://scienceblogs.com/effectmeasure/2009/07/a_scientist_to_head_osha_quel.php
Moldbug’s final response, “Soviet Science”:
http://unqualified-reservations.blogspot.com/2009/08/ur-is-on-vacation.html
I just posted a comment that is awaiting moderation, it posts links to a discussion concerning the centralized funding of various scientific institutions by both big corporations and big government bureaucracies. Both of which have their own corrupt interests in expanding their own wealth and power at the expense of others.
I’ll just have to wait until the moderation is over. It mentions “Soviet Science” and a blogger named “Mencius Moldbug”.
Ah, the e-mails reveal the noble spirit of pure, scientific inquiry!
Here Jerry Pournelle’s Iron Law of Bureaucracy.
http://www.jerrypournelle.com/reports/jerryp/iron.html
Science reported published research last month showing that:
That was 15 million years ago.
The moderation is taking TOO DAMN LONG:
The First part of the “Soviet Science” discussion:
http://scienceblogs.com/effectmeasure/2009/07/a_scientist_to_head_osha_quel.php
Moldbug’s final reply, mentioning the similarity of the centralized public funding of scientific institutions to “Soviet Science”:
http://unqualified-reservations.blogspot.com/2009/08/ur-is-on-vacation.html
The moderation is taking TOO DAMN LONG
Well, it is a Friday night. You might forgive the host for enjoying an evening from time to time.
Jim, you originally said there was NO ice that didn’t melt away in the summer. Now you’re quoting support that says “very little.”
Hyperbole on that scale doesn’t help your credibility. Next time you want to paraphrase a source to make a point, try doing so accurately.
“Now that scientists have reached a consensus that carbon dioxide emissions from human activities are the major cause of global warming,…”
Science Daily 2/08
Yes, a MOST trusted source, Jim
“The “smoking gun” in your article is the “trick” of adjusting tree ring data. According to RealClimate, this “trick” was discussed and approved of in published papers going back to 1998, and isn’t a “trick” at all, but rather a way to show both data sets (tree rings and instrumental) on the same graph. (On that graph they actually diverge.)
Here’s what’s NOT in the 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. ””
With respect to Chris’s use of “not” in all-caps to make a point, I suggest that he “go back to the end of the line” for “throwing a stone at the accused before I am finished reading the indictment from the scroll.”
With respect to the absence of George Soros’ fingerprints on the evidence, I would suggest that the scientists violating norms of conduct and scientific integrity don’t all engage in the Hollywood cliches of maniacal laughter and outbursts of, “Fools, all of you!”
With respect to an expectation of e-mails or any kind of recorded communication being “private”, I read the papers about scandals involving e-mail communication, and I regard my e-mail as being about as private as an op-ed letter I once got published in the student newspaper. That scientists are that careless with their words in e-mail is good for us, letting know the thought processes behind controversial research, but it reveals them to be stupid people, which to me calls into question whether they have the intellectual smarts to do any serious science at all.
With respect to the tailoring of the blend between “proxy” and “real” temperature data passing peer review multiple times, go Google and read Richard Feynman on “Cargo Cult Science.”
For example, I quote from “Cargo Cult Science”
“which is that you should not fool the layman when you’re talking as ascientist. I am not trying to tell you what to do about cheating on your wife, or fooling your girl friend, or something like that, when you’re not trying to be a scientist, butjust trying to be an ordinary human being. We’ll leave those problems up to you and your rabbi. I’m talking about a specific, extra type of integrity that is not lying, but bending over backwards to show how you’re maybe wrong, that you ought to do when acting as a scientist.”
The e-mails in question, if not expressions of scientific fraud, have at least the flavor of, “I love my wife, but oooo that hottie post-doc in Dr. So-and-So’s lab!”
Jim, you originally said there was NO ice that didn’t melt away in the summer. Now you’re quoting support that says “very little.”
The first statement was about the last time we had 450ppm; the second about the last time we had 380ppm (which is what we have now).
The first statement was about the last time we had 450ppm; the second about the last time we had 380ppm (which is what we have now).
Correlation is not causation.
Here is a great article about a blatant perversion of the science by Mike Mann.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/11/20/mikes-nature-trick/
Paul Milenkovic – I thought I was agreeing with you.
Rand – no, correlation is not causation. But when you have both multiple points of correlation and a plausible mechanism for causation, the circumstancial evidence gets rather strong. Kind of like finding a fish in the milk.
Carl Pham – CO2 is a greenhouse gas. Go look at Venus – baking at 800 degrees under tons of the stuff. We’re in no danger of becoming Venus, but historically, high CO2 concentrations have led to hot, dry climates that are not conducive to agriculture.
Regarding “foreign oil FUD,” do you really think we’d give a plugged nickel about Kuwait getting invaded if it weren’t for oil? Also, China pays the same price per barrel of oil as we do, and their demand will only grow. Europe has an economy of the same size as the US, and they produce less of their oil than we do. Of course, the reason they use less per capita then us is because those evil socialist countries made deliberate efforts to reduce their oil usage.