Climategate e-mails: Global warming scandal may be ‘one of the greatest of modern science’

If we could see what the global warming theorists write to one another privately, would we discover they don’t really believe we’re in trouble?

Well, now we can see what they’re saying. Computer hackers apparently have tapped more than 1,000 e-mails of global warming scientists, and some of the e-mails suggest the scientists have been covering up anything that suggests the world isn’t warming (even as the CO2 level continues to rise).

The e-mails were leaked from the University of East Anglia’s Climate Research Unit, which also is called the Hadley CRU.

Screened data. From The [London] Telegraph:

[P]erhaps the most damaging revelations – the scientific equivalent of the Telegraph’s MPs’ expenses scandal – are those concerning the way Warmist scientists may variously have manipulated or suppressed evidence in order to support their cause.

Here are a few tasters. (So far, we can only refer to them as alleged emails because – though Hadley CRU’s director Phil Jones has confirmed the break-in to Ian Wishart at the Briefing Room – he has yet to fess up to any specific contents.) But if genuine, they suggest dubious practices such as:

Manipulation of evidence:

[Allegedly From: Phil Jones To: ray bradley and others, Nov. 16, 1999]

"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."

Private doubts about whether the world really is heating up:

[Allegedly From: Kevin Trenberth To: Michael Mann and others, Oct. 12, 2009]

"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."

Suppression of evidence:

[Allegedly From: Phil Jones To: “Michael E. Mann” May 29, 2008]

"Can you delete any emails you may have had with Keith re AR4?

"Keith will do likewise. He’s not in at the moment – minor family crisis.

"Can you also email Gene and get him to do the same? I don’t have his new email address.

"We will be getting Caspar to do likewise."

Fantasies of violence against prominent Climate Sceptic scientists:

[Allegedly From: Ben Santer To: P.Jones and others, Oct. 9, 2009]

"Next time I see Pat Michaels at a scientific meeting, I’ll be tempted to beat the crap out of him. Very tempted."

Attempts to disguise the inconvenient truth of the Medieval Warm Period (MWP):

[Allegedly From: "Michael E. Mann" To: Phil Jones and others, June 4, 2003]

"……Phil and I have recently submitted a paper using about a dozen NH records that fit this category, and many of which are available nearly 2K back–I think that trying to adopt a timeframe of 2K, rather than the usual 1K, addresses a good earlier point that Peck made w/ regard to the memo, that it would be nice to try to “contain” the putative “MWP”, even if we don’t yet have a hemispheric mean reconstruction available that far back…."

And, perhaps most reprehensibly, a long series of communications discussing how best to squeeze dissenting scientists out of the peer review process. How, in other words, to create a scientific climate in which anyone who disagrees with AGW can be written off as a crank, whose views do not have a scrap of authority…

Debating all along. As Andrew Bolt observes, this could be “a scandal that is one of the greatest in modern science.”

I’ve long wanted a real debate on global warming. Apparently there has been one, among the global warming zealots themselves, but they’ve let us hear only one side.

Frank Warner

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Update: The New York Times: “This is not a smoking gun, this is a mushroom cloud,” said Patrick J. Michaels, a climatologist who has long faulted evidence pointing to human-driven warming and is criticized in the documents.

Update: Here's one more alleged e-mail, highlighted by the Air Vent, the blog that steered these communications to world attention:

From: Phil Jones
To: "Michael E. Mann"
Subject: HIGHLY CONFIDENTIAL
Date: Thu Jul 8 16:30:16 2004

Mike,

Only have it in the pdf form. FYI ONLY - don't pass on. Relevant paras are the last 2 in section 4 on p13. As I said it is worded carefully due to Adrian knowing Eugenia for years. He knows the're wrong, but he succumbed to her almost pleading with him to tone it down as it might affect her proposals in the future !

I didn't say any of this, so be careful how you use it - if at all. Keep quiet also that you have the pdf.

The attachment is a very good paper - I've been pushing Adrian over the last weeks to get it submitted to JGR or J. Climate. The main results are great for CRU and also for ERA-40. The basic message is clear - you have to put enough surface and sonde obs into a model to produce Reanalyses. The jumps when the data input change stand out so clearly. NCEP does many odd things also around sea ice and over snow and ice.

The other paper by MM is just garbage - as you knew. De Freitas again. Pielke is also losing all credibility as well by replying to the mad Finn as well - frequently as I see it.

I can't see either of these papers being in the next IPCC report. Kevin and I will keep them out somehow - even if we have to redefine what the peer-review literature is !

Cheers

Phil

Mike,

For your interest, there is an ECMWF ERA-40 Report coming out soon, which shows that [Eugenia] Kalnay and [Ming] Cai are wrong. It isn't that strongly worded as the first author is a personal friend of Eugenia. The result is rather hidden in the middle of the report.

It isn't peer review, but a slimmed down version will go to a journal. KC [Kalnay and Cai] are wrong because the difference between NCEP and real surface temps (CRU) over eastern N. America doesn't happen with ERA-40. ERA-40 assimilates surface temps (which NCEP didn't) and doing this makes the agreement with CRU better. Also ERA-40's trends in the lower atmosphere are all physically consistent where NCEP's are not - over eastern US.

I can send if you want, but it won't be out as a report for a couple of months.

Cheers

Phil

Prof. Phil Jones

Climatic Research Unit Telephone +44 (0) 1603 592090
School of Environmental Sciences Fax +44 (0) 1603 507784
University of East Anglia
Norwich Email p.jones@xxxxxxxxx.xxx
NR4 7TJ
UK

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See also: 15 global warming e-mails, summarized.

Comments

[George]

I downloaded the 62 MB zip file and started looking through it. It is jaw dropping.

I check into Steve McIntyre's Climate Audit web site from time to time and often sense his frustration attempting to get data from the global warming "team." Year in and year out, they have played games with him and have been anything but transparent or scientific.

Now, I get a peek at the other side of the struggle. In email file 1107454306.txt, Phil Jones notes that McIntyre and associate Ross McKitrick have been attempting to get CRU station data for years. Jones says he would delete the data rather than give it to someone. By the way, some CRU data was ultimately lost. Coincidence?

A good partial summary of the leaked emails can be found here.

[George]

By the way, if you're wondering why Phil Jones wanted those FOIA-requested "AR4" emails criminally deleted, this article will provide a clear background:
Caspar and the Jesus paper

[kalyani]

Are we all Dying soon?

I have been threatened by the author of this blog about the complete destruction of earth and end of human race on earth….what do you think? please take your valued and expert look and reassure me.

http://rush2me.wordpress.com/2009/10/10/global-warming-a-doomsday-in-near-future

[Lillie]

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