Congress May Probe Leaked Global Warming E-Mails

5397433A few days after leaked e-mail messages appeared on the Internet, the U.S. Congress may probe whether prominent scientists who are advocates of global warming theories misrepresented the truth about climate change.

Sen. James Inhofe, an Oklahoma Republican, said on Monday the leaked correspondence suggested researchers "cooked the science to make this thing look as if the science was settled, when all the time of course we knew it was not," according to a transcript of a radio interview posted on his Web site. Aides for Rep. Darrell Issa, a California Republican, are also looking into the disclosure.

The leaked documents (see our previous coverage) come from the Climatic Research Unit of the University of East Anglia in eastern England. In global warming circles, the CRU wields outsize influence: it claims the world's largest temperature data set, and its work and mathematical models were incorporated into the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's 2007 report. That report, in turn, is what the Environmental Protection Agency acknowledged it "relies on most heavily" when concluding that carbon dioxide emissions endanger public health and should be regulated.

Last week's leaked e-mails range from innocuous to embarrassing and, critics believe, scandalous. They show that some of the field's most prominent scientists were so wedded to theories of man-made global warming that they ridiculed dissenters who asked for copies of their data ("have to respond to more crap criticisms from the idiots"), cheered the deaths of skeptical journalists, and plotted how to keep researchers who reached different conclusions from publishing in peer-reviewed journals.

One e-mail message, apparently from CRU director Phil Jones, references the U.K.'s Freedom of Information Act when asking another researcher to delete correspondence that might be disclosed in response to public records law: "Can you delete any emails you may have had with Keith re AR4? Keith will do likewise." Another, also apparently from Jones: global warming skeptics "have been after the CRU station data for years. If they ever hear there is a Freedom of Information Act now in the UK, I think I'll delete the file rather than send to anyone." (Jones was a contributing author to the chapter of the U.N.'s IPCC report titled "Detection of Climate Change and Attribution of Causes.")

In addition to e-mail messages, the roughly 3,600 leaked documents posted on sites including Wikileaks.org and EastAngliaEmails.com include computer code and a description of how an unfortunate programmer named "Harry" -- possibly the CRU's Ian "Harry" Harris -- was tasked with resuscitating and updating a key temperature database that proved to be problematic. Some excerpts from what appear to be his notes, emphasis added:

I am seriously worried that our flagship gridded data product is produced by Delaunay triangulation - apparently linear as well. As far as I can see, this renders the station counts totally meaningless. It also means that we cannot say exactly how the gridded data is arrived at from a statistical perspective - since we're using an off-the-shelf product that isn't documented sufficiently to say that. Why this wasn't coded up in Fortran I don't know - time pressures perhaps? Was too much effort expended on homogenisation, that there wasn't enough time to write a gridding procedure? Of course, it's too late for me to fix it too. Meh.

I am very sorry to report that the rest of the databases seem to be in nearly as poor a state as Australia was. There are hundreds if not thousands of pairs of dummy stations, one with no WMO and one with, usually overlapping and with the same station name and very similar coordinates. I know it could be old and new stations, but why such large overlaps if that's the case? Aarrggghhh! There truly is no end in sight... So, we can have a proper result, but only by including a load of garbage!

One thing that's unsettling is that many of the assigned WMo codes for Canadian stations do not return any hits with a web search. Usually the country's met office, or at least the Weather Underground, show up – but for these stations, nothing at all. Makes me wonder if these are long-discontinued, or were even invented somewhere other than Canada!

Knowing how long it takes to debug this suite - the experiment endeth here. The option (like all the anomdtb options) is totally undocumented so we'll never know what we lost. 22. Right, time to stop pussyfooting around the niceties of Tim's labyrinthine software suites - let's have a go at producing CRU TS 3.0! since failing to do that will be the definitive failure of the entire project.

Ulp! I am seriously close to giving up, again. The history of this is so complex that I can't get far enough into it before by head hurts and I have to stop. Each parameter has a tortuous history of manual and semi-automated interventions that I simply cannot just go back to early versions and run the update prog. I could be throwing away all kinds of corrections - to lat/lons, to WMOs (yes!), and more. So what the hell can I do about all these duplicate stations?...

As the leaked messages, and especially the HARRY_READ_ME.txt file, found their way around technical circles, two things happened: first, programmers unaffiliated with East Anglia started taking a close look at the quality of the CRU's code, and second, they began to feel sympathetic for anyone who had to spend three years (including working weekends) trying to make sense of code that appeared to be undocumented and buggy, while representing the core of CRU's climate model.

One programmer highlighted the error of relying on computer code that, if it generates an error message, continues as if nothing untoward ever occurred. Another debugged the code by pointing out why the output of a calculation that should always generate a positive number was incorrectly generating a negative one. A third concluded: "I feel for this guy. He's obviously spent years trying to get data from undocumented and completely messy sources."

Programmer-written comments inserted into CRU's Fortran code have drawn fire as well. The file briffa_sep98_d.pro says: "Apply a VERY ARTIFICAL correction for decline!!" and "APPLY ARTIFICIAL CORRECTION." Another, quantify_tsdcal.pro, says: "Low pass filtering at century and longer time scales never gets rid of the trend - so eventually I start to scale down the 120-yr low pass time series to mimic the effect of removing/adding longer time scales!"

It's not clear how the files were leaked. One theory says that a malicious hacker slipped into East Anglia's network and snatched thousands of documents. Another says that the files had already been assembled in response to a Freedom of Information request and, immediately after it was denied, a whistleblower decided to disclose them. (Lending credence to that theory is the fact that no personal e-mail messages unrelated to climate change appear to have been leaked.)

For its part, the University of East Anglia has posted a statement calling the disclosure "mischievous" and saying it is aiding the police in an investigation.

The statement also quotes Jones, CRU's director, explaining his November 1999 e-mail,?which said: "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) amd from 1961 for Keith's to hide the decline." Jones said that the word trick was used "colloquially as in a clever thing to do" and that it "is ludicrous to suggest that it refers to anything untoward."

Also unclear is the ultimate impact of the leak, which came before next month's Copenhagen summit and Democratic plans for cap and trade legislation.

On one hand, over at RealClimate.org, Gavin Schmidt, a modeler for the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies, has been downplaying the leak. Schmidt wrote: "There is no evidence of any worldwide conspiracy, no mention of George Soros nefariously funding climate research ... no admission that global warming is a hoax, no evidence of the falsifying of data, and no 'marching orders' from our socialist/communist/vegetarian overlords."

On the other, groups like the free-market Competitive Enterprise Institute, the target of repeated derision in the leaked e-mails, have said: "We have argued for many years that much of the scientific case for global warming alarmism was weak and some of it was phony. It now looks like a lot of it may be phony."

ScienceMag.org published an article noting that deleting e-mail messages to hide them from a FOI request is a crime in the United Kingdom. George Monbiot, a U.K. activist and journalist who previously called for dramatic action to deal with global warming, wrote: "It's no use pretending that this isn't a major blow. The emails extracted by a hacker from the climatic research unit at the University of East Anglia could scarcely be more damaging."

Complicating matters for congressional Republicans who'd like to hold hearings is that East Anglia, of course, is a U.K. university. The GOP may intend to press the Obama administration for details on how the EPA came to rely on the CRU's predictions, and whether the recent disclosure will change the agency's position. Another approach lies in e-mail messages discussing grants from the U.S. Commerce Department's National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration to East Anglia; one says: "We need to show some left to cover the costs of the trip Roger didn't make and also the fees/equipment/computer money we haven't spent otherwise NOAA will be suspicious."

The irony of this situation is that most of us expect science to be conducted in the open, without unpublished secret data, hidden agendas, and computer programs of dubious reliability. East Anglia's Climatic Research Unit might have avoided this snafu by publicly disclosing as much as possible at every step of the way.

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Declan McCullagh is a correspondent for CBSNews.com. He can be reached at [e-mail] and can be followed on Twitter as declanm. You can bookmark Declan's Taking Liberties site here, or subscribe to the RSS feed.

[willardzz]

The ONLY Inconvenient truth, Is that Al Gore is the world's first carbon credit trading tycoon.

[jimmyc1955]

What is not mentioned is that the original data is GONE!! There is no raw data but in fact it is data based on a number of bad massages, poor algorithms, miscacluations and just stupidity.

In the 1980s CRU actually dumped the raw data to save space and costs and since in the 80s nobody really thought this data was important who cared??

Now the badly massaged data is what is used to calculate global warming which is kind of like planning a flight by using a compass you found in a box of cracker jacks.

[willardzz]

I find it alarming that many speak of the 'agenda' in these comments as if it is some great enigma, and I find it alarming that out of 244 comments there's no mention of the planned global carbon tax or the planned cap and trade derivatives fraud. There's CSPAN footage of a back-and-forth between Hillary Clinton and Al Gore(very poorly acted I might add) where Clinton asks Gore if there should be a global GDP tax or a cap and trade system, and Gore responds that it could be either or but that he would prefer both.

This IS the agenda, and it's been known by mainstream media blacklisted whistleblowers for some time now. They intend to use a global carbon tax and cap & trade system to fund the global government. The global government will seem like a natural evolution caused by the global carbon tax - that it's obvious a global governing body must be created and some portion of all our national sovereignties must be handed over if there is to be a global carbon tax to begin with.. BUT it's actually the other way around, the global government was planned first, and the global carbon tax/cap and trade is how they not only intend to fund the global government, but also eventually creating an international currency that will far out-shadow the control the US dollar had at the height of its glory, and this time there will not be any public oversight, at least for all its faults and sins, the US Government has had to answer directly to its people and an elected legislature. Indeed, dark storm clouds are now looming on the horizon that will make the American Empire seem like Julie Andrews under blue skies in The Sound of Music. Erasure of borders, an avowed mission to end nationhood globally, etc.. I realize for some of you this might be a lot to take in but by ALL MEANS PLEASE PLEASE do your own research and don't trust everything the mainstream media throws at you, use a free and mostly uncensored Internet while you have the opportunity, for that opportunity will not be around forever.

[noloyalisti]

What are you using to mark that pier, a yardstick? Try using a micrometer and then taking tens of thousands of measurements. The plug them into the computer model based on measurements from tens of thousands of locations. I figured you were kidding anyway.

How can it be cold in the winter? How can it be hot in the Sahara while it is snowing in the Alps? Yes, the theory of global warming is a hoax, just like the theory of gravity. Man God really fooled a whole lot of scientists this time. Way to go God!

[truman green]

To doenload1: Thanks for asking for the address of my blog. It is:
http://trugreenmyblog.wordpress.com/

I always suggest to people that if they really believe the oceans are rising to go down to their local pier--if they live near an ocean--and put a mark on a pier post, then check it yearly. So far the sea level at White Rock near where I live is the same as it was in the 60s when I live near the beach.

Hope you'll comment on my blog.

Truman Green

[MekhongKurt]

Mr. Green, I *do* live near the sea, in Bangkok. Over the past 20 years, along one stretch of the coastline on the outskirts of the greater metropolitan area, the gigh-tide mark has moved over half a kilometer inland. I don't know how much deeper it is, and yes, this is a low-lying, and pretty level area. There's a temple that used to sit back from shore; now, the monks had to build a false floor about a meter above the former floor (the ground) and outbuildings were raised up on stilts.

This is not a one-off instance; it's occurring in numerous places in this part of the world.

[NowBeWithThat]

First of all, manmade global warming is a THEORY.

Second, the so-called preponderance of evidence to support that theory comes from a U.K. group who tortured statistics, cooked data and misappropriated U.S. research funding.

Notice global warming became 'climate change' now that the earth's temps are going down, not up.

Al Gore and his chorus of environmental alarmists are scrambling to save face and caboose right about now. That's the real inconvenient truth.

[noloyalisti]

This argument of the deniers is really stupid and it does not change ANYTHING about the theory of global climate change. CO2 is a pollutant since there is a DIRECT correlation between CO2 concentration and global temperature rise. The levels of CO2 have risen 35% in 150 years since the start of the industrial revolution. The RATE of CO2 rise and global temperature rise in UNPRECEDENTED, based on evaluation of ice cores which record climate data for the last 420,000 years.

[paine1964]

If we are the deniers, the other side are the brainwashed following the global warming religion. I have opened my eyes to all data. Solar flares, volcanoes, etc. many other sources make up the majority of the problem. In fact, humans can only go so far back in time in their measurements. 420,000 years is a drop in the bucket. Don't forget that the climate WAS all swamp before and life thrived then, so quit all the worrying. If global warming is the problem it sure beats the ice ages.
I love this earth and all life on it, but this is a power play to control people. The constructors of these summits and legislation do not practice what they preach.

[rvail136]

Here here!

[deepsea5101]

This is really unfortunate...the reality is that pumping CO2 into the atmopsphere is going to have, and is having, a disasterous effect on the plantet. What is unfortunate is that melting polar caps, shinking glaciers, dying coral reefs along with all the other obvious effects of global warming is not enough for the skeptics...so Scientist have to come up with the data that prooves global warming is happening. We need a "Gobal Common Sense Commission"...just like we found out that dumping toxins into our water ways during the first half of the 20th century was bad for the environment -- why can't we just all agree that burning fossil fuels at the current increasing rate is going to have a cataclysmic effect if we don't convert our energy production away from fossils fuels -- in addition to saving the environment, from simply an American Patriot stand point -- why not rally behind stopping global warming simply to end our dependance on foreign oil...??

[jssmi765]

That's really interesting deepsea. Where are you getting your information? From the IPCC? I suggest you read a paper signed by 31,000 scientists, it will open your eyes: http://www.oism.org/pproject/GWReview_OISM600.pdf It certainly opened mine. First) CO2 IS NOT having a "disastrous" effect. All forms of vegetation and corresponding animal life, save those actively hunted/destroyed by mankind, are flourishing. Forests are UP 40% in the U.S. since 1950 and "Amazonian rain forests are increasing their vegetation by about 900 lbs. of carbon per acre per year." You see, CO2 is plant food. Second) The North Pole ice cap has shrunk but the South Pole recorded RECORD LEVELS of ice last January, effectively creating an equilibrium between the two. Third) Glacial shortening began in 1850 as well as the overall current warming trend, LONG BEFORE the six-fold increase in carbon emissions produced by mankind since 1940. Fifth) We know, with out a doubt that CO2 levels have been several times higher in the past. Finally) There is ZERO evidence that anything mankind is doing is contributing the global warming. In fact, all the available data, as reviewed by 31,000 scientists, suggests NOTHING we do warms the planet, however we DO have the power to cool it. (See the paper)

[ubrew12]

jssmi765 said: "I suggest you read a paper signed by 31,000 scientists, it will open your eyes: http://www.oism.org/pproject/GWReview_OISM600.pdf It certainly opened mine. First) CO2 IS NOT having a "disastrous" effect. All forms of vegetation and corresponding animal life... are flourishing."

You need to know that the article you read was formatted in the form of a National Academy of Sciences Article, and was forwarded by a former head of the NAS, yet was NOT an official peer-reviewed NAS offering. In effect: its a FAKE. The NAS had to take the rare step of formally REBUKING a former head for lending his name to a FAKE article.

The fact that the article you read was NOT endorsed by NAS, was NOT published in ANY peer-reviewed publication that cares about its name, yet was FORMATTED to look like a NAS official publication, should tell you all you need to know about the people who produced it.

As for the 31,000 'scientists' who have signed the Oregon Petition, did you maybe only 1% of them are climate scientists? 10% of them are either human or animal DOCTORS.

[robertg222]

Clearly, global warming is anthropogenic (man-made). It exists mainly in the human mind and is manufactured from two sources ? careless data acquisition and dubious data processing.

The climategate e-mails (and don't forget the computer code) didn't expose the global warming scam. That was already a well know fact because nothing that was forecasted in the computer models ever came true. The e-mails just confirmed the scam and made it more obvious who was behind it. It will become very obvious what media organizations are supporting the scam. The scam supports will give this story as little air time as possible. Fortunately we now have the internet. Not giving people the truth is why the major media outlets are going down the tubs.

[jpd01]

What is the incentive for this scam? Do you really think it's possible that scientists and media organizations around the world all colluded to show something that was false, and were able to sustain the hoax all this time?

[Steven_Douglas]

"Do you really think it's possible that scientists and media organizations around the world all colluded to show something that was false, and were able to sustain the hoax all this time?"

No, literally thousands of scientists could (like lay people) could have taken the word of a handful of elite scientists who published foundational conclusions, and without transparency - refusing to disclose their data, codes, methods, etc., -- and signed their names to it. Voila - consensus reached, no collusion by thousands, or even a motive for any of them, necessary.