East Anglia emails - 'Climategate'

The news of emails sent within the Climate Research Unit of the University of East Anglia has caused many people to consider what is really happening on the issue of 'global warming'.

The emails became public after either a hacker or whistleblower obtained emails from the server of the CRU and posted them on the internet during November 2009. If it was a hacker, then there are some ethical problems involved - however, since they are now public and the CRU scientists have acknowledged they are accurate, it is important to analyse them and the resulting fallout carefully.

Some of the emails revealed that some of the data had been selected, that some information had been shredded rather than handed over in Freedom of Information requests and that scientists had worked to stop opposing views being printed.

This immediately posed huge questions about the agenda of what is happening relating to 'global warming, especially it became public in the weeks preceding the Copenhagen meetings.

We are told that the scientific consensus is that man-made global warming is occurring and needs to be addressed immediately.
But is it really? Do the scientists really believe it themselves?

The emails have been posted online is a searchable website. Click here.

Here are some of the news and commentary articles written in relation to the emails:

UK climate scientist to temporarily step down - AP, 1/12/2009
"Britain's University of East Anglia says the director of its prestigious Climatic Research Unit is stepping down pending an investigation into allegations that he overstated the case for man-made climate change. The university says Phil Jones will relinquish his position until the completion of an independent review into allegations that he worked to alter the way in which global temperature data was presented. . ."

Caught green-handed Climategate
Christopher Monckton, booklet - published on SPPI. 43 pages, pdf.

Climate change: this is the worst scientific scandal of our generation
Our hopelessly compromised scientific establishment cannot be allowed to get away with the Climategate whitewash, says Christopher Booker.
By Christopher Booker  - The Telegraph -  28 Nov 2009
"A week after my colleague James Delingpole, on his Telegraphblog, coined the term "Climategate" to describe the scandal revealed by the leaked emails from the University of East Anglia's Climatic Research Unit, Google was showing that the word now appears across the internet more than nine million times. . . "

Climategate - read all about it
Andrew Bolt - blog - Wednesday 2/12/2009
"Christopher Monckton writes the first book(let) on Climategate, the greatest scientific scandal in our lifetime. The summary...."

A crime against humanity  
Walter Starck, Quadrant Online, November 30, 2009.
"Climategate: Trivial break in or devastating break out? 
"The attempts by AGW proponents to dismiss the significance of what is revealed in the Climategate information serves only to further compound the malfeasance involved. What has been exposed is anything but trivial. It goes to the core of the science itself and any attempt to trivialise it is in itself further corruption. . ."

The people -vs- the CRU: Freedom of information, my okole…
Watts Up With That, Willis Eschenbach, 24/11/2009
"Foreword: Willis asked me to carry this post here. What follows is a long and detailed series of email exchanges that outline the difficult task of getting data so that scientific replication/reproduction can be done by people external to the tight knit group of scientists that make up climate science today. This is a must read for anyone trying to understand the issue and the dodges of the UK FOIA that CRU has been doing.
It is an excellent run down on his own experience in trying to obtain a copy of the CRU temperature data. It is long but details how CRU used every excuse to prevent independent examination of the data. . ."

Global Warming Consensus: Garbage In, Garbage Out 
by Michael Barone, Townhall, 30/11/2009.
".... The CRU has been a major source of data on global temperatures, relied on by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. But the e-mails suggest that CRU scientists have been suppressing and misstating data and working to prevent the publication of conflicting views in peer-reviewed science periodicals. Some of the more pungent e-mails:
"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!"
"Can you delete any e-mails you may have had with Keith re AR4?"
"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 fact is that we can't account for the lack of warming at the moment and it is a travesty we can't."
"I'm getting hassled by a couple of people to release the CRU temperature station data. Don't any of you three tell anybody that the UK has a Freedom of Information Act!"
You get the idea. The most charitable plausible explanation I have seen comes from The Atlantic's Megan McArdle. "The CRU's main computer model may be, to put it bluntly, complete rubbish."
Australian geologist Ian Plimer, a global warming skeptic, is more blunt. The e-mails "show that data was massaged, numbers were fudged, diagrams were biased, there was destruction of data after freedom of information requests, and there was refusal to submit taxpayer-funded data for independent examination." ..."

Climategate: 'The stones cry out'
Joseph Finlay, American Thinker, November 29, 2009
"The extraordinary revelation of Climategate through the alternative media the world over raises provocative questions about the health of Western notions of truth, science, and intellectual freedom. Jonathan Leake, writing in the UK's Times Online,offers a balanced overview of the scandal and this fascinating point regarding the chronology of the "breaking" of the story:  "It was a powerful and controversial mix - far too powerful for some. Real Climate is a website designed for scientists who share Jones's belief in man-made climate change. Within hours the file had been stripped from the site. Several hours later, however, it reappeared - this time on an obscure Russian server. Soon it had been copied to a host of other servers, first in Saudi Arabia and Turkey and then Europe and America. . ."

The Climate Has Changed
Patriot Post synopsis Tuesday, December 1st, 2009
"The case for man-made global warming took a major hit last week when 62 megabytes of data, including e-mail messages and model codes (searchable here), were stolen from the UK's University of East Anglia and then made public. The new information tells us much that we already suspected -- warming scaremongers are cooking the books and suppressing dissent in order to push their agenda. . . "

The Fraud Is Everywhere: SUNY Albany and Queens University Belfast Join Climategate
(PJM Exclusive - Pajamas Media. 1/12/2009.
"Some of the emails leaked in Climategate discuss my work. Following is a comment on that, and on something more important.
In 2007, I published a peer-reviewed paper ^[1]alleging that some important research relied upon by the IPCC (for the treatment of urbanization effects) was fraudulent. The emails show that Tom Wigley - one of the most oft-cited climatologists and an extreme warming advocate - thought my paper was valid ^[2].
They also show that Phil Jones, the head of the Climatic Research Unit, tried to convince the journal editor not to publish my paper...."

Climategate Pty Ltd
John Muscat, Quadrant Online, December 2, 2009
What should we make of the near-unanimity of opinion among a cohort of scientists in such a complex and dynamic field? Is there more to it than consistent measurements, experimental results and interpretations?  More...

The interview that should change minds
Doomed Planet, Quadrant Online, December 1, 2009
"Coolly and calmly Aynsley Kellow, Professor and Head, School of Government, Uni of Tasmania, discusses Climategate with Michael Duffy on ABC's Counterpoint. This expert reviewer for the United Nation's IPPC Fourth Assessment Report presents a clear and damning analysis. Essential listening. Audio here... 

Peer review locks gate
David Archibald, Quadrant Online, November 30, 2009
As the Climategate emails show, the warmers captured the whole system - all the journals, all their editors and the journals' boards. They successfully removed inconvenient editors. More...