Email hack has GW deniers all excited

[pscot]

There's more at the link. The Comment thread is worth reading.


http://www.realclimate.org/

As many of you will be aware, a large number of emails from the University of East Anglia webmail server were hacked recently (Despite some confusion generated by Anthony Watts, this has absolutely nothing to do with the Hadley Centre which is a completely separate institution). As people are also no doubt aware the breaking into of computers and releasing private information is illegal, and regardless of how they were obtained, posting private correspondence without permission is unethical. We therefore aren’t going to post any of the emails here. We were made aware of the existence of this archive last Tuesday morning when the hackers attempted to upload it to RealClimate, and we notified CRU of their possible security breach later that day.

Nonetheless, these emails (a presumably careful selection of (possibly edited?) correspondence dating back to 1996 and as recently as Nov 12) are being widely circulated, and therefore require some comment. Some of them involve people here (and the archive includes the first RealClimate email we ever sent out to colleagues) and include discussions we’ve had with the CRU folk on topics related to the surface temperature record and some paleo-related issues, mainly to ensure that posting were accurate.

[joshcryer]

1. Yeah, been following it all day, so pathetic. Hate conspiracy crap. BTW, direct link to article:

http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2009/11/the-cru-hack/#more-1853

Posted the direct link even though I know that this will probably drop to the second or third page before RealClimate updates enough for it to matter...

[joshcryer]

2. Also, LGF actually considers it a non-issue (though I do believe they take a AGW truth stance)...

http://littlegreenfootballs.com/article/35184_Global_Warming_Nontroversy_of_the_Day

[Birthmark]

3. Any word on the "trick" climate scientists used...

...or are using to get the trees, sea ice, and flowers to back up this "hoax?" :)

[pscot]

4. If you read down at the link

you find this: "No doubt, instances of cherry-picked and poorly-worded “gotcha” phrases will be pulled out of context. One example is worth mentioning quickly. Phil Jones in discussing the presentation of temperature reconstructions stated that “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) and from 1961 for Keith’s to hide the decline.” The paper in question is the Mann, Bradley and Hughes (1998) Nature paper on the original multiproxy temperature reconstruction, and 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 “a good way to deal with a problem”, rather than something that is “secret”, and so there is nothing problematic in this at all."

It seems to be a non-issue.

[Birthmark]

7. Yes, it's a non-issue to the sane.

But feel free to list all of the conspiracy theories that have died in the last few decades. They never stop.

[Blue_Tires]

5. well, they have seemingly pulled a lot of suckers in...

the funny thing is that it was only after Crichton's book that the deniers started spouting that 'global conspiracy swindle' bullshit...but it is amusing to see the deniers think they struck gold or something...

[pscot]

6. I, for one, welcome our socialist, communist, vegetarian overlords

:rofl:

[n2doc]

8. Another take on it

The hacked climate science email scandal that wasn't
Category: climate
Posted on: November 20, 2009 2:51 PM, by James Hrynyshyn

Much is being made by those who really, really believe that there's a global conspiracy among climatologists of the emails and other documents stolen from the University of East Anglia's Climatic Research Unit. According to such bloggers, thousands of "embarrassing" pieces of correspondence between some of the leading climate researchers in the world now lay bare the scheme to mislead humanity about the nature of climate change.

I downloaded the 62 MB file and took a quick look at a random selection of what are mostly dull little missives bereft of the context required to understand them in any meaningful way. Just as you'd expect from bits and piece of correspondence never intended for public consumption. Next.

http://scienceblogs.com/islandofdoubt/2009/11/the_hacked_climate_science_ema.php

read the comments. the drooling idiots are out in force.

[Dead_Parrot]

9. Wait for the claims that the hackers filtered out the "good stuff"

Or that the whole thing was set up by UEA to throw everyone off the scent.

You know it's only a matter of time...