Educated Opinions on Climate change - a denouement or a hoax? 25

[jmw]

I decided to run this as a separate companion to the "Educated Opinions" thread.

There definitely is some hanky-panky going on but by whom and against whom?

http://rankexploits.com/musings/2009/real-files-or-fake/

I hope you guys are all aware of the growing concern about a hacker (the only one on the planet I may not want to have tortured for months on end, the jury is out yet) - this guy has apparently hacked into the Hadley CRU and released lots of emails that apparently, and if true, show that some fudging was going on by the warmists.

Some of the mails quoted seem blatantly false to me but then again, some of the supposedly private emails of Maddoff and others in a like situation (.e.g. spin doctors and MPs in the UK) seem to have been written by idiots too.

I leave you to make your own minds up.

You can follow links at Climate Audit and Watts Up with that. Or do a Google.

You can download what is allegedly the hacked material at

http://www.mininova.org/tor/3168330

because the original link is coming up "Object not found".

Er, it appears Hadley admit being hacked. They are quoted as admitting the files are genuine (I wonder if they may want to recant that when they see some of the emails released).

I have linked to the Blackboard site because they raise the question of hoax.
Could be.
Could be a genuine hack to download a mass of genuine data and then seed it with a few false documents.

The Hitler diaries are suggested by one as an object lesson.
We should remember that the Hitler diaries ultimately did a lot of harm to those who were taken in by them. The lesson is that while apparently targeted on the warmists, the real targets, if a hoax, may be the skeptics.



But if true, some heads will roll, or should roll even if they don't.

JMW

http://www.ViscoAnalyser.com

 

[SomptingGuy]

Let me be the first to reply.

- Steve

 

[NomLaser]

http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/11/...ently-been-hacked-hundreds-of-files-released/

with some of the info that was apparently posted.

 

[NomLaser]

I can't say anything other than wow after reading excerpts from emails. If these documents hold up as genuine then everything that we have been told about warming since the 80's is in doubt.

 

[GregLocock]

"If these documents hold up as genuine"

IF being the operative word.



Cheers

Greg Locock

SIGlease see FAQ731-376 for tips on how to make the best use of Eng-Tips.

 

[GregLocock]

First up, CRU is not part of Hadley, it is based at UEA.

Secondly, many of the emails do appear to be genuine.

Here is a fairly damning list

http://bishophill.squarespace.com/blog/2009/11/20/climate-cuttings-33.html

and here's the true believers response

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

Cheers

Greg Locock

SIGlease see FAQ731-376 for tips on how to make the best use of Eng-Tips.

 

[NomLaser]

There's some pretty damning evidence (if true) in there and CRU is claiming that it is genuine but everything taken out of context. Not sure how some of these can be taken out of context.

It makes it a bit difficult to believe them that it was out of context when they say stuff like...

"Also, it is important for us if you can transfer the ADVANCE money on the personal accounts which we gave you earlier and the sum for one occasion transfer (for example, during one day)will not be more than 10,000 USD. Only in this case we can avoid big taxes and use money for our work as much as possible" -Stepan Shiyatov

 

[owg]

Maybe this will be another evil organization finally caught out by the tax man.

HAZOP at

http://www.curryhydrocarbons.ca

 

[jmw]

Actually, that was of less concern to me.
In the real world of some researchers being cash rich and some with little or no funding, the cash rich Dr Briffa would be seen as something like Father Christmas but given that the funds are controlled, and where costs are rising all the time - the Russians were facing ever increasing helicopter costs (as stated elsewhere in the emails)and where some of the money was lost through changing exchange rates, as a cash strapped researcher you might want to preserve every bit you get and avoid paying taxes if you can.
It ain't ethical but how much money is there in the Russian pot for tree ring work?
So this could be all quasi legitimate.

Now if, as the one to pays the piper, there was evidence of calling the tune, then that wold be something more alarming. Did we get any instance of coercing/influencing others to manipulate data?
There was an example of one researcher saying he had done just about all he could to the data but the data basically wasn't going to show what they wanted and there is certainly a lot of back and forth about data sets.

By the way, if it had been me expecting a Russian visitor to arrive at Heathrow I'd have made damn sure to collect them and get them to Cambridge, not leave them to find themselves a hotel and make their own way out the next day, even if I was going to refund their costs.

JMW

http://www.ViscoAnalyser.com

 

[NomLaser]

Here's a pretty good summary of some of the findings

http://bishophill.squarespace.com/blog/2009/11/20/climate-cuttings-33.html

Here is a search engine of the emails.

http://www.anelegantchaos.org/cru/

 

[FeX32]

http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/eng/james_balog_time_lapse_proof_of_extreme_ice_loss.html

Fe

 

[photoengineer]

Climate change is happening. The polar ice caps are shrinking. Science has shown that's a fact.

But we don't know if the climate change or shrinking of polar ice caps is caused by humans. What we do know is that the polar ice caps have increased and decreased in size continually for millions of years. We know that our climate has changed since the beginning of time.

Prudhoe Bay in Alaska is one of the largest oil fields in the United States. It's as far north as you can go in Alaska. Oil is made up of carbon, which means that Prudhoe Bay was once a tropical jungle with lush amounts of growth. It used to be much warmer than today! People that study the movement of continents have said that Alaska has generally stayed in the same location (i.e., it wasn't transported from the equator). So we know that the climate in Alaska used to be a lot warmer than it is today.

 

[NomLaser]

Polar caps aren't shrinking, in fact they are thickening. What you are seeing is the outlying areas around the edge are decreasing but not the actual thickness. Just wanted to clear that up.

http://www.ijis.iarc.uaf.edu/en/home/seaice_extent.htm

 

[owg]

I enjoyed the time lapse pics of the glaciers. However this paper,

http://www.oism.org/pproject/GWReview_OISM600.pdf,

suggests this has been going on for a while. So has the rate of ice loss, or whatever the measurement is, doubled over the last 20 years, or not?

HAZOP at

http://www.curryhydrocarbons.ca

 

[NomLaser]

OWG, star for a great article. I've only had the chance to briefly skim it while I'm sitting here watching How the Grinch Stole Christmas and trying to get some work done...lol

 

[jmw]

Good tip in the threads... look at the Harry read me txt in documents.....
This is some poor programmer trying to make sense of the data.

I think the mails have provided a quick high but the real fireworks are going to come from the documents and the computer code.
Oh, and the next tranche of stuff downloaded if and when it happens.

But people, as caring human beings, spare a thought for the warmists who are going ape trying to shoot down deniers and hold up the researchers.

"Just typical private email language you'd find anywhere" they claim but other scientists, not in their cosy group, seem not to agree.
Here's a link to a thread discussing harry_read_me.txt :

http://www.neuralnetwriter.cylo42.com/node/2421

JMW

http://www.ViscoAnalyser.com

 

[cranky108]

Come on true belivers and stand by your religion.

Actually it is those who don't believe, and question the numbers who are more correct. There isen't anything shown so far that is convencing either way.

It is true the climate is changing, but no real proof that it is human caused, or can be affected significently by humans.

However, it is interesting how the facts are playing out agenst those with an agenda.

It is also saddening how those agendas are being played out agenst the people as taxes, and reduced freedom.

 

[NomLaser]

Cranky, that's one of the things that truly worries me, taxes and undue economic burden on the back of the consumers. If Cap and Trade ever goes into effect, we will see such an economic impact that it could be devastating. Not only to businesses but the consumers because we will be paying for businesses to either switch over to less co2 emitting processes or paying the companies to buy more carbon credits for what? To try and stop something that we, as humans, have no influence over?

 

[cswilson]

I'd definitely put my money on this being an internal leak rather than an external hack. My best guess is that someone inside got disgusted at the stonewalling of Freedom of Information requests and decided to play whistleblower.

I've wondered for years what the e-mails of these guys would show, and suspected they thought the way these e-mails show, but I never really thought there would be an expose like this. (And still, after several days, no claims that I have seen that any of these are false -- just that some were "taken out of context".)

But I'm with jmw on this one that the real revelations will be in the code and data. Those of you with a geekish bent may want to wander over to

http://www.chiefio.com

where E.M. Smith, a very experienced programmer, has been deconstructing the code and data from the temperature record from the comparable American group, NASA GISS. This stuff was only released recently and under great pressure from the same people who were after CRU.

Smith's postings are not easy to follow (he doesn't seem to believe in graphical presentation of the data), but it is worth it to see how precarious the whole case is, and just how bad the quality of work that everything rests on turns out to be.

 

[davefitz]

Well, it is not surprising that a group of like minded people ( climate scientists in this instance) behaves like most other groups of people had over history- their behavior has more religious and political overtones than scientific overtones. Perhaps there is a social psychological explanation- it was seen before with scientists ( in the 1950's) with the carl sagan vs emmanual vielokovsky controversy.


Well, this too shall pass.