They're on to you Pete - links disabled in a very mysterious fashion...
Are there any strange clouds hovering above your house?
Bet you have a look...:laugh:
Hahaha my level of paranoia is rising a little Keith......Hmmmm a strange cloud of leaked emails I see from my window. It appears that some so called scientists have been cooking the global warming books.......
- Brendan O'Keefe
- From: <CITE>The Australian </CITE>
- November 24, 2009 12:00AM
<!-- // .story-header-tools --><!-- .story-header -->
<!-- google_ad_section_start(name=story_introduction, weight=high) -->CLIMATE change sceptics have pounced on the mass release by hackers of emails between climate scientists that appear to portray the scientists as fudgers and obfuscators of data and as plotters who would undermine their opponents' work. <!-- google_ad_section_end(name=story_introduction) -->
<!-- // .story-intro --><!-- google_ad_section_start(name=story_body, weight=high) -->The head of the Climatic Research Unit at the University of East Anglia in Britain, Phil Jones, has confirmed that the institution's database has been hacked but he cannot confirm which of the emails are authentic and which are fakes.
Opposition Senate leader and Australia's unofficial chief climate change sceptic Nick Minchin says the email scandal has strengthened a point he has long made.
"The leaked emails certainly substantiate the point I've been making that the scientific debate as to the small degree of global warming in the latter part of the 20th century is far from settled," he says.
"These emails reveal at least prima facie evidence that supporters of the theory of anthropogenic global warming are going to considerable lengths to doctor evidence and to suppress information and intimidate those who don't support that theory."
<!-- // .story-sidebar -->Minchin says the apparent fraud signifies a "rather disturbing culture, at least in the East Anglia CRU, which is one of most significant in the world in terms of determining outcomes of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change".
"For those who don't think the IPCC should be taken as gospel, this does confirm that we shouldn't be unquestioning of the opinions of the UN commitee."
Geologist and climate change denier Ian Plimer says he hinted in his recent book Heaven and Earth that there is fraud afoot among climate scientists.
"This substantiates what I hinted at," Plimer says.
"Here we have the Australian government underpinning the biggest economic decision this country has ever made and it's all based on fraud."
Climate Change Minister Penny Wong said in the Senate yesterday that the emails amounted to "a free exchange of views on climate change. We on this side are happy to have that debate."
US climate change scientist Kevin Trenberth, whose private emails are included in thousands of documents stolen by hackers and posted online, says the leaks may have been aimed at undermining next month's global climate summit in Denmark.
Trenberth, of the US National Centre for Atmospheric Research, in Colorado, says he believes the hackers, who stole a decade's worth of correspondence from a British university's computer server, deliberately distributed only those documents that could help attempts by sceptics to undermine the scientific consensus on man-made climate change.
The University of East Anglia, in eastern England, on Sunday said hackers stole from its computer server about a decade's worth of data from its Climatic Research Unit, a leading global research centre on climate change.
About 1000 emails and 3000 documents have been posted on websites and seized on by climate change sceptics, who claim correspondence shows collusion between scientists to overstate the case for global warming, and evidence that some have manipulated evidence.
"It is right before the Copenhagen debate, I'm sure that is not a coincidence," Trenberth says.
Trenberth, a lead author on the 2001 and 2007 IPCC assessments, says he found 102 of his own emails posted online.
"I personally feel violated," he says. "I'm appalled at the very selective use of the emails and the fact they've been taken out of context."
(A US blogger retorted yesterday: "If the emails are out of context, CRU should release the rest to prove the point.
Another, Tom Nelson, crows: "If this crushes the whole climate (fraud) industry, there are going to be a whole lot of kids out there with degrees that are worthless. Not to mention all the little businesses that were set up to cash in on the scam.")
Opposition climate change spokesman Greg Hunt says fraud should be punished.
"If there are cases where people have fabricated scientific data then they should be dealt with by the relevant scientific authorities," Hunt says.
"But does this report change my view that climate change is real? No it doesn't."
In one of the stolen emails, Trenberth is quoted as saying "we can't account for the lack of warming at the moment and it is a travesty that we can't".
He says the comment is presented by sceptics as evidence that scientists can't explain some trends that appear to contradict their stance on climate change. Trenberth explains his phrase was contained in a paper he wrote about the need for better monitoring of global warming to explain the anomalies, in particular improved recording of rising sea surface temperatures.
In another email posted online, and unrelated to Trenberth, the British research centre's director, Jones, wrote that he had used a "trick" to "hide the decline" in a chart detailing recent global temperatures. Jones has denied manipulating evidence and insists his comment has been misunderstood. He said in a statement he had used the word trick "as in a clever thing to do".
The picture that emerges of the scientists is one of professional backbiting and questionable scientific practices.
US blogger and sceptic John Hinderaker wrote on his site: "The emails I've reviewed so far do not suggest that these scientists are perpetrating a knowing and deliberate hoax. On the contrary, they are true believers.
"I don't doubt that they are sincerely convinced - in fact, fanatically so - that human activity is warming the Earth.
"But the emails are disturbing nonetheless. What they reveal, more than anything, is a bunker mentality. The emails show beyond any reasonable doubt that these individuals are engaged in politics, not science."
Australian climate change sceptic and science commentator Joanne Nova says on her website: "They are nothing less than startling. Leading researchers have been caught discussing how to 'hide the decline', how to refuse their scientific and legal obligations, and threatening to blackball professional journals to stop legitimate research being published. These same researchers have a long, persistent record of hiding data and, when faced with a series of legal requests, have claimed they've 'lost' the entire original global set of climate records. The whole set. Really?"
A partial review of the emails shows that, in many cases, climate scientists revealed that their own research wasn't always conclusive. In others, they discuss ways to paper over differences among themselves to present a unified view on climate change.
On at least one occasion, climate scientists were asked to beef up conclusions about climate change and extreme weather events because environmental officials in one country were planning a "big public splash".
The release of the documents has given ammunition to many sceptics of man-made global warming, who for years have argued that the scientific consensus was less robust than the official IPCC summaries indicated and that climate researchers systematically ostracised other scientists who presented findings that differed from orthodox views.
Much of the internal discussion over scientific papers centres on how to pre-empt attacks from prominent sceptics, for example.
Fellow scientists who disagreed with orthodox views on climate change were variously referred to as prats and "utter prats".
In other exchanges, one climate researcher said he was "very tempted" to "beat the crap out of" aprominent, sceptical US climate scientist.
In several of the emails, climate researchers discuss how to arrange for favourable reviewers for papers they planned to publish in scientific journals.
Climate researchers at times appeared to pressure scientific journals not to publish research by other scientists whose findings they disagreed with.
One email from 1999, titled CENSORED!!!!!, showed one US-based scientist uncomfortable with such tactics.
"As for thinking that it is 'Better that nothing appear, than something unacceptable to us' - as though we are the gatekeepers of all that is acceptable in the world of paleoclimatology - seems amazingly arrogant. Science moves forward whether we agree with individual articles or not," the email says.
Some exchanges centre on requests by independent climate researchers for access to data used by British scientists for some of their papers.
The hacked folder is labelled FOIA, a reference to the Freedom of Information Act requests made by other scientists for access to raw data used to reach conclusions about global temperatures. Many of the email exchanges discuss ways to decline such requests for information, on the grounds that the data was confidential or was an individual's or institution's intellectual property.
In other email exchanges related to the FOIA requests, some British researchers ask foreign scientists to delete all emails related to their work for the upcoming IPCC summary.
The Washington Post yesterday said the emails gave a glimpse of the "behind-the-scenes battle to shape the public perception of global warming".
In one email, the CRU's Jones writes to Pennsylvania State University's Michael E. Mann and questions whether the work of academics that question the link between human activities and global warming deserve to make it into the IPCC report, the Washington Post reports.
"I can't see either of these papers being in the next IPCC report," Jones writes.
"Kevin and I will keep them out somehow - even if we have to redefine what the peer-review literature is!"
In another, Jones and Mann discuss how they can pressure an academic journal not to accept the work of climate sceptics with whom they disagree.
"I will be emailing the journal to tell them I'm having nothing more to do with it until they rid themselves of this troublesome editor," Jones replies.
Sceptic Tim Ball, on Australian blog Greenie Watch, wrote: "The argument that global warming is due to humans, known as the anthropogenic global warming theory, is a deliberate fraud.
" I can now make that statement without fear of contradiction because of a remarkable hacking of files that provided not just a smoking gun, but an entire battery of machineguns.'
The CRU has bemoaned release of the emails, which it says "appear to have been illegally taken from the university".
"Elements (were) published selectively on a number of websites," the unit says.
"We took immediate action to remove the server in question from operation and have involved the police in what we consider to be a criminal investigation.
"The CRU . . . will continue to engage fully in reasoned debate on its findings with individuals and groups that are willing to have their research and theories subjected to scrutiny by the international scientific community.
"The selective publication of some stolen emails and other papers taken out of context is mischievous and cannot be considered a genuine attempt to engage with this issue in a responsible way."
lace w:st="on">Australia</st1
