New climate emails leaked ahead of talks

The Climatic Research Unit at the University of East Anglia in Norwich, England.

LONDON - The British university whose leaked emails caused a global climate science controversy in 2009 says it has discovered a potentially much larger data breach.

University of East Anglia spokesman Simon Dunford said that while academics didn't have the chance yet to examine the roughly 5,000 emails apparently dumped into the public domain Tuesday, a small sample examined by the university "appears to be genuine."

The university said in a statement that the emails did not appear to be the result of a new hack or leak. Instead, the statement said that the emails appeared to have been stolen two years ago and held back until now "to cause maximum disruption" to the imminent U.N. climate talks next week in Durban, South Africa.

If that is confirmed, the timing and nature of the leak would follow the pattern set by the so-called "Climategate" emails, which caught prominent scientists stonewalling critics and discussing ways to keep opponents' research out of peer-reviewed journals.

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Those hostile to mainstream climate science claimed the exchanges proved that the threat of global warming was being hyped, and their publication helped destabilize the failed U.N. climate talks in Copenhagen, Denmark, which followed several weeks later.

Although several reviews have since vindicated the researchers' science, some of their practices - in particular efforts to hide data from critics - have come under strong criticism.

The content of the new batch of emails couldn't be immediately verified - The Associated Press has not yet been able to secure a copy - but climate skeptic websites carried what they said were excerpts.

Although their context couldn't be determined, the excerpts appeared to show climate scientists talking in conspiratorial tones about ways to promote their agenda and freeze out those they disagree with. There are several mentions of "the cause" and discussions of ways to shield emails from freedom of information requests.

Penn State University Prof. Michael Mann - a prominent player in the earlier controversy whose name also appears in the latest leak - described the latest leak as "a truly pathetic episode," blaming agents of the fossil fuel industry for "smear, innuendo, criminal hacking of websites, and leaking out-of-context snippets of personal emails."

He said the real story in the emails was "an attempt to dig out 2-year-old turkey from Thanksgiving '09. That's how desperate climate change deniers have become."

Bob Ward, with the London School of Economics' Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change, said in an email that he wasn't surprised by the leak.

"The selective presentation of old email messages is clearly designed to mislead the public and politicians about the strength of the evidence for man-made climate change," he said. "But the fact remains that there is very strong evidence that most the indisputable warming of the Earth over the past half century is due to the burning of fossil fuels and other human activities."

The source of the latest leaked emails was unclear. The perpetrator of the original hack has yet to be unmasked, although British police have said their investigation is still active.

[julianpenrod]

In point of fact, the "hoax" that global warming "debunkers" cheer was nothing of the sort. It's based on what is known as dendroclimatology, the study of the reaction of trees and other plants to chamges in the environment, so they can be used as surrogates for thermometers under conditions where they aren't available, such as on parts of the planet and at earlier periods of time. The crux of the matter is that, until about the Seventies, there was a rough, but only rough, correlation between increasing tree ring width and rising average measured thermometer readings. During the Seventies, however, a divergence occurred, in which tree rings began shrinking, as if temperature was dropping. But, it should be remembered, actual; test thermometer readings continued to rise! It could be suggested that the very pollutants being blamed for global warming were poisoning the tes trees so they couldn't grow well, anymore. Among other things, climatologists suggested no emphasizing the tree ring data since, if the actual measured thermometer readings were direct, the tree rings were unreliable. This does not qualify as a cover up, it was a decision not to pursue data deemed unreliable, to avoid leading astray the same ilk of gullible populace who could be talked into believing the Occupy movement is about shiftless failures wanting other people's possessions and not about legitimately aggrieved individuals calling for full prosecutorial weight being levied against provable corporate criminals!
Incidentally, it should also be mentioned that the tree ring data that the "debunkers" are trying to validate is precisely the information that indicates a global cooling phase, which, note, even "debunkers" now say is not taking place! In other words, the basis of their complaint is information being withheld that they themselves admit coincides with phenomena they agree is not occurring!
On a different level, consider the reactions of the same "debunkers" to the equal unauthorized theft of emails and other such messages by WikiLeaks. The WikiLeaks revelations included such that Bush Adminisration claims about "allies" were lies, that individuals trusted by the State Department were actually imbeciles and that agendas by Washington did not match their claims. Did the global warming "debunkers" respond to these revelations by taking adversarial, contemptuous attitudes toward government! If anything, their insistences of government's "reliability" only strengthened! The are hypocrites, every single one of the "debunkers".

[kbbpll]

Ten thousand years from now, not a living thing on this planet will give a rat's behind about what's in these emails. They might however have some lingering concerns about how a species in the course of a couple hundred years managed to release 50 million years' worth of sequestered carbon into the atmosphere.

[joelschl]

Do you not care that these 'scientists' are manipulating the data to get the desired result? Culling out data from cooler areas and only adding in data from censors near populated areas? Our climate is mostly driven by the sun... period..

[joelschl]

LOL... I love how Mann tries to say things are taken out of context. I have read the entire emails from where the exerpts are taken from.. and they seem to be quite revealing. I URGE everyone to download the emails and judge for yourself. These are elixir salesman people.. they are selling unicorns and cupcakes...along with their lies and distortions.

Hmm.. if everything is on the up and up.. why would you have to keep things 'well hidden'...
or delete emails to 'cover yourself'??? And WHAT exactly is 'the cause'?

my guess is that 'the cause' is KEEPING THE GRAVY TRAIN
ROLLING and the money flowing to these snake-oil scientists.

<1577> Jones:

[FOI, temperature data]
Any work we have done in the past is done on the back of the research grants we
get - and has to be well hidden. I've discussed this with the main funder (US
Dept of Energy) in the past and they are happy about not releasing the original
station data.

<2440> Jones:

I've been told that IPCC is above national FOI Acts. One way to cover yourself
and all those working in AR5 would be to delete all emails at the end of the
process

<0810> Mann:

I gave up on Judith Curry a while ago. I don't know what she think's she's
doing, but its not helping the cause

[joelschl]

Forgot to mention above... at the point starting
<1577> Jones:
These are exerpts from some of the emails that were posted in the index of interesting email content (README.txt) that give some context to the email dump. The numbers refer to a text file that contains the entire email message. Again.. I urge everyone to get the dump.. and read them for yourselves and draw your own conclusions!

[vielmann]

I want to know what is being done to the people hacking private e-mails of others?????

[joelschl]

It is the once hero of the liberals... none other than Julian Assange... founder of WikiLeaks. Thank goodness he did post all of these emails.. so sunlight can be shed on this sham. Sunlight is the best disinfectant!

[msimamaji]

Even if we were to shut down the University of East Anglia and fire and black-list all its professors, such an action would not change the truth. The scientific evidence is overwhelming. Report after report from scientists all over the world prove that global warming is real, and it's getting worse because of increased carbon emissions. Even Richard Muller, a scientist hired by the Koch Brothers to debunk global warming has concluded that global climate change is real and that it is caused by carbon emissions.

What happens at East Anglia is rather inconsequential to the evidence that exists. The GOP is denying global climate change - even thought Rick Perry's Texas is whithering from record droughts. The GOP's stance on global climate change is proof that they are unfit to lead this country.

[92F150]

True and it would not change perception either. To be conservative typically means being opposed to change. These email's won't change any minds on either side. I don't understand the skeptics but I can respect thier opinion. I don't understand why the skeptics are so adamant; what do they loose or why is it important for global warming to be a hoax?

[involved_indi]

The problem with this issue as with many others is people politicizing it. Your comment and the reply below are nothing more than "hate mail". It reflects a problem you have with people who have a different opinion and your lack of confidence in engaging in honest debate over any topic.

[JHaed]

I'm concerned about the way that this story is being reported. Most accounts, including this one, don't bother to mention until several paragraphs in how completely discredited this manufactured controversy was the first time around. Multiple independent panels, including the National Science Foundation, thoroughly reviewed the hacked emails and cleared all scientists involved of data manipulation.

We haven't even seen this new batch of emails, and already hyperbolic claims are being made in this commenting space.

[josephp5]

Yes it's so frustrating.

The major news media like CBS will not simply say that one side is clearly correct and the other clearly lying, because it is better for business to continue to act like there is still some genuine scientific controversy about the issue.

After all, they got us to click on it.

[josephp5]

Suppose those emails had read, "Our plan to fool people into thinking Global Warming is real and caused by humans is working perfectly!"

It still wouldn't make a bit of difference, because the evidence for Anthropomorphic Global Warming is overwhelming! It's supported by every scientific climate organization. The theory is accepted by the Academy of Sciences of every country---US, Russia, France, China, England, India---all of them!

The mountain of evidence supporting Anthropomorphic Global Warming cannot be undone simply by emails from a single university professor, regardless of who he is or how blatant the emails appear.

[_Liann_]

There used to be so many Koch-Murdoch Axis agents posting before Koch & Murdoch were all facing huge prison sentences. Murdoch isn't even doing new hacking since getting caught at felony criminal phone and computer hacking -- these are two year old emails hacked back in 2009. Kochs are running three Tea Party Stooges for president: Bachmann, Perry and Cain, and they don't have time for this petty crap now

[DawnGurl]

These "climate scientists" should all be in jail. They whitewashed things the last time --maybe the public will be mad enough about the enormous amount of money spent on carbon scams to now react.

[josephp5]

The real enormous amount of money being spent is that being spent by corporations like ExxonMobil and Koch Industries to convince numskulls like you that the life work of dedicated climate scientists is not worthy, but the rantings of the lackeys they hire to spout their anti-warming talking points should be taken seriously.