
Climate center's server hacked, revealing documents and emails - nice1
http://www.examiner.com/x-25061-Climate-Change-Examiner~y2009m11d20-ClimateGate--Climate-centers-server-hacked-revealing-documents-and-emails
======
jacoblyles
I've followed Steve McIntyre for awhile, and it is in fact shameful, damning,
and unscientific how ardently climate scientists have fought to keep their
data from him when he has requested it to check their models. The problem
seems to be particularly acute among the old guard of the profession. Seeing
the other side of the conversation doesn't add a whole lot, we already knew
what bastards they are.

For those who haven't checked out Steve's work, look at
<http://www.climateaudit.org/> . But be warned, if you're looking for politics
over numbers, he will put you to sleep. And the server is getting _hammered_
at the moment. But please book mark it and go back later. His blog is an
important piece of the internet, what we all thought the internet could be
before lolcats disillusioned us.

It doesn't surprise me to see a lot of people here coming to the climate
scientists' defense. They are, after all, a popular and respected group in
society at the moment. But when you cherry-pick data, create unreproducible
models, and then refuse to share your data with other people, you ought to
lose a little bit of that respect. We will get precisely the quality of
science we enforce, which at present is any quality of science the
authoritative voices in the area chose to give us.

When Steve has been successful at obtaining the data he wants, he has been
able to find flaws in various analyses. If you come from a scientific
perspective, that ought to be great news! Independent confirmation or
refutation of results increases the quality of our knowledge. But if you come
from a political perspective then Steve is bad news indeed.

Why climate scientists are respected and treated as the high priests of truth
while they hide data from the world and McIntyre is treated as a vaguely
dangerous rogue, I don't understand it. I suspect it's politics. But in a
perfect world there would be a thousand McIntyre's and they wouldn't have to
fight for data. It would be available in public online databases, hosting paid
for by tax dollars. That ought to be the least we ask of any science with the
potential to route trillions of dollars in government spending policy over the
next decade.

But sadly, when bad science comes to light, all we get instead is a circling
of the wagons around the favored group. Why? Again, I suspect politics.

~~~
jacoblyles
As a follow-up, I don't think it would be unreasonable for climate scientists
operating on public funds to be required to take the following steps:

1) Archive a copy of all raw data series used in publications with a public
database

2) Archive a copy of the final processed data series used in publications with
the same database.

3) Archive a copy of the source code used to produce figures and tables with
the same database.

The default stance for publicly-funded science should be openness, not
secrecy.

Hell, these would be good steps for any serious journal to take, on any
subject, regardless of federal funding.

edit: Example of the pathology we need to fight:

>>"We should be able to conduct our scientific research without constant fear
of an "audit" by Steven McIntyre; without having to weigh every word we write
in every email we send to our scientific colleagues. In my opinion, Steven
McIntyre is the self-appointed Joe McCarthy of climate science. I am unwilling
to submit to this McCarthy-style investigation of my scientific research. As
you know, I have refused to send McIntyre the "derived" model data he
requests, since all of the primary model data necessary to replicate our
results are freely available to him. I will continue to refuse such data
requests in the future. Nor will I provide McIntyre with computer programs,
email correspondence, etc. I feel very strongly about these issues. We should
not be coerced by the scientific equivalent of a playground bully. I will be
consulting LLNL's Legal Affairs Office in order to determine how the DOE and
LLNL should respond to any FOI requests that we receive from McIntyre."

~~~
DanielBMarkham
I hope that this entire debate results in a new set of ethical standards for
publicly-funded research. At the minimum I would support the open and free
release of all unaltered data, a "Chinese wall" between researchers and
activists (of whatever breed), and the requirement for all science based on
"best guess" to say so in bold print, much like the language we have when
investing with a prospectus. The standard of proof being used should be
available in clear understandable language.

I fear that by the time the political debate ends, a lot of good research is
going to become collateral damage, which would be an awful result.

~~~
anigbrowl
Daniel, you say: "At the minimum I would support the open and free release of
all unaltered data."

If i may extract quote from the message you replied to: _As you know, I have
refused to send McIntyre the "derived" model data he requests,_ since all of
the primary model data necessary to replicate our results are freely available
to him. _I will continue to refuse such data requests in the future. Nor will
I provide McIntyre with computer programs, email correspondence, etc. I feel
very strongly about these issues. We should not be coerced by the scientific
equivalent of a playground bully. I will be consulting LLNL's Legal Affairs
Office in order to determine how the DOE and LLNL should respond to any FOI
requests that we receive from McIntyre."_ (emphasis added by me)

I do agree with you that transparency is the litmus test of good science. At
the same time, catering to that can lay you open to abuses from, well, trolls.

As an analogy, suppose I had a bee in my bonnet about Linux security and I
kept demanding that Linus send me copies of his binaries every time he did a
new commit. He would rightly tell me to get the sources and build it myself
and leave him alone. and in turn I could post lonely rants along the lines of
'why won't Linus Torvalds come clean about Linux security'. It would be quite
meaningless, but it would sucker in some people. If I was sufficiently clever
I could probably get quoted by someone at Microsoft or in the BSD camp.

The parallel I am drawing here is to the public datasets and methods laid out
in published, peer-reviewed papers. If McIntyre is so sure that either the
methods or the datasets are flawed, why not follow the established practice of
writing to the journal and challenging the paper, or even submitting his own
analysis of the public data and explaining how it improves on existing
analyses? Instead he posts in some minor journal which is not part of the
scientific corpus, not a hard science journal, and has been widely accused of
lax publication criteria.

One of the things that really bothers me about the skeptical crowd (as opposed
to individual skeptics) is that they employ a lot of same kind of arguments as
the proponents of 'intelligent design' do, claiming there's an ivory-tower
conspiracy that silences all dissenting views and shuts them out of
publication. Any time you have a bunch of people going 'OMG teh conspiracy',
it's time to whip out the old bullshit detector...and all too often, comparing
their claims with the published literature sends the BS detector way into the
red.

~~~
yummyfajitas
_Nor will I provide McIntyre with computer programs,_

Sad fact: most journal articles do not include all the details necessary to
reproduce their results. There are usually all sorts of heuristics and tricks
used which are not interesting enough to include in the paper. Typically, the
experts in the field all know each other and share source code/tricks in
private conversation.

As for the "ivory-tower conspiracy", it apparently isn't bullshit. As these
emails reveal, there is a conspiracy to make it difficult for Steve McIntyre
to examine published scientific results. There is also a conspiracy (revealed
in other emails) to oust climate skeptics from scientific societies. It isn't
paranoia if they are really out to get you.

------
lionhearted
Y'know, I hang out around smart people who like science, and I read a lot of
science, and I do some science, so I get asked about science a lot.

And when I've said that I'm not convinced that there's human global warming
happening, I've been called all sorts of nasty names. I didn't say it isn't
happening; I just said the information I've seen doesn't convince me. I see a
lot of strongly held beliefs that global warming is happening, but the actual
data seemed murky at best to me. In short, I wasn't convinced either way.

But by casually interested people, I got called all sorts of terrible names.
"Denier", things like that. Compared to a creationist as someone who obviously
doesn't get it, who just has beliefs by faith.

Really? I say the data hasn't convince me, that makes me a denier and a
creationist? This whole thing has seemed much more like a religion than
science to me. There's some science happening, but a lot of people want and
need this to be true as a part of their identity rather than science. It
doesn't surprise me at all that you see corruption from scientists in a
culture like that. It goes against everything science is supposed to be.

~~~
martian
Fair point. And the thing about climate science is that while you may or may
not disagree about global warming, the strategies we would employ to fight
global warming are the same strategies we should be employing regardless.

Take the issue of renewable energy. It might prevent global warming, but it
also promotes energy independence, reduces pollution generally, allays fears
about peak-oil or peak-coal.

~~~
InclinedPlane
Peak-coal? Really? The last I checked there was enough coal in the ground to
last several hundred years more, at least. As for oil, there's a pretty damned
good chance that our extraction technology will improve (as has been the
trend) and our ability to use new sources, like shale, will improve as well
(as has been the trend).

Peddling the "fossil fuels will run out, we should find alternatives" line is
a dangerous path. It risks a lot of very stubborn people saying "really? well,
let's just find out, to the bitter end" and calling that bluff. And there is a
very real possibility (even if you are skeptical and put that possibility at,
say, 10% or less) that the world ends up using every last drop of coal, and
far more oil than we ever thought possible, and ultimately burning 10x, 20x or
more fossil fuels than have been burned so far.

------
lincolnq
I'm not too surprised at this. I think this is a great case study on
groupthink.

I've observed groupthink / "the outside is the enemy" behaviour in several
groups that I've participated in. It can be caused by one person setting the
tone of the group (e.g., by making jokes), and then everyone else follows
along. In this case, I could imagine a joke about skeptics, or perhaps someone
misguidedly suggesting it was the group's "mission" to convince people that
climate change was a big problem to be fixed.

Setting that sort of tone, especially early in the group's formation, usually
quickly blossoms into an us-vs.-them mentality. Sometimes that's ok, but if
you are trying to claim that you are objective, it's highly counterproductive
-- and the worst part is that it's hard to realize how harmful groupthink can
be when you are genuinely trying to learn something.

Anyway, if you want to reduce this effect in groups you're in, you have to
have a sharp groupthink detector and you have to be fearless about saying
stuff that's counter to the group's tone. I've defused groupthink situations
by visibly becoming offended when I recognize that groupthink is occurring:
it's usually fairly easy to explain why you're offended, and (in most kinds of
groups) people usually have social pressure to stay away from discussions
which will offend others. The problem is that the groupthinky memes can be
fun, so you may be seen as a captain buzzkill.

~~~
crux_
Yet people doing climate science have enemies, and not imagined ones. This is
not just group-think conjuring an imaginary "them."

This is true regardless of whether you believe in their integrity or not, and
as a result they can no longer _behave_ objectively, even if it turns out that
their conclusions were reached in a thoroughly objective manner.

~~~
dschobel
If the scientists can no longer behave objectively then they've already lost
everything.

~~~
jongraehl
That's an impractical statement.

~~~
dschobel
The scientists' job is specifically to do science and be impartial to the
results.

How can that possibly be a controversial statement?

~~~
madebylaw
No human can possibly behave objectively in all situations. We are constantly
under the influence of bias (whether conscious or unconscious).

------
jerf
I'm basically a skeptic on climate stuff, but I'd encourage people to wait a
bit before jumping to conclusions. Some of the pull quotes in this article
seem sort of damning, but I can easily come up with perfectly legitimate
reasons for some of the others, and for all I know there are legitimate
reasons for the ones that look damning out of context. The Golden Rule also
dictates that I cut them the same slack that I would want given to me if my
private emails got out; we all talk differently in private than we would if we
were talking to the world, and there's nothing wrong with that.

~~~
DanielBMarkham
Agreed.

You can pull anything out of context and make it sound like anything.

Almost.

At some point it becomes very difficult to say it's all a trap, however. If
the size of the data is as large as indicated, it should be fairly trivial to
determine this one way or the other.

If the discussions did proceed as indicated, this data might make a great
study in how science is carried out behind closed doors, so aside from the
political squawking, there could be something here of real long-term value to
science. I bet you'd never get these guys to publicly admit what their
internal discussions were like.

~~~
jerf
"If the size of the data is as large as indicated, it should be fairly trivial
to determine this one way or the other."

That's why I said we should wait, rather than claiming this is meaningless.
This data set, if legitimate as it seems to be, is large enough to draw
conclusions from, and if there are issues clearly indicated, OK, conclude
away, once the data is in. I'm just not willing to conclude anything from a
handful of selected quotes from a clearly biased source. And if those are the
best quotes, I'm generally unimpressed.

~~~
DanielBMarkham
I'm more interested in the process of how science is conducted than this
particular subject or this particular article. What we're seeing here, on both
sides, is that folks have already decided on way or another. It's the solution
looking for the problem. So I'm afraid the signal-to-noise ratio is going to
be very low for this no matter what the entirety of the data shows.

------
robotrout
To whomever hacked these emails, I thank you. I really think this was a
valuable service to mankind that you've achieved.

You've lifted up the robes of the priesthood, and exposed them to be at best,
flawed scientists, and at worst, social engineers. Whether this knowledge will
have any effect on the truly brainwashed, we see that it doesn't, but it will
have an effect on saner minds.

The marketing geniuses who turned 'global warming' into 'climate
change','carbon dioxide' into 'carbon', and migrating polar bears into
victims, will surely not be knocked out by this, but they're deleting emails
this morning, you can be sure!

~~~
antonovka
You're ranting like a loon about brainwashing, cheering on the hacking of
private e-mail, and you're getting _upvoted_ for it?

If my e-mail was hacked and out-of-context quotes were levied to take ignorant
pot shots at my work, I would be _beyond livid_. This behavior is absolutely
inappropriate and I hope the perpetrator is caught and jailed.

~~~
robotrout
Thanks for sharing your valuable insights on this issue.

Of course, the email wasn't private, was it? It's a government funded (your
money) institution. That actually, perversely, makes this crime even more
illegal. Governments seem to have more rights than private citizens.

So, you're right, it was a crime. You're also right, I'm cheering it. But
you're wrong about who is ranting. It's you who is ranting.

~~~
antonovka
_Of course, the email wasn't private, was it? It's a government funded (your
money) institution._

This justifies breaking federal law and then excising context as to leverage
out-of-context statements to dishonestly support your position?

It's no wonder that climate scientists are mildly paranoid about the behavior
of "deniers".

 _But you're wrong about who is ranting. It's you who are ranting._

You've convinced me sir. I find your ideas intriguing and would like to
subscribe to your newsletter.

~~~
robotrout
I think it's obvious from your constant "out of context" remarks, that you
haven't actually read the emails. Instead of me starting a newsletter for you,
why don't you download them and read those instead?

------
pierrefar
When you're a skeptic looking for "evidence", you'll find plenty in there.

When you're a scientist looking for an informal discussion about thinking
critically about the evidence and data interpretation, you'll also find plenty
in there.

~~~
izend
However, the way Al Gore has presented Climate Change has not at all been like
scientific discussion, it has been portrait as a topic where the discussion
and debate is over. That is my problem with individual such as Al Gore because
statements like this,

"Land warming since 1980 has been twice the ocean warming — and skeptics might
claim that this proves that urban warming is real and important."

show me there is still room to discuss and debate the evidence.

~~~
pierrefar
There is plenty of room for debate if the skeptics stop polarizing and
politicizing the debate.

Also, if anyone in this debate can be counted on to change their mind, it's
the scientists: we do it all the time when shown evidence to the contrary of
the current belief. I sincerely doubt that your average skeptic walking into
this debate is actually willing to change their mind if shown evidence. Their
mind is already made up and it won't change.

So yes, plenty of room for debate, but it needs the right mentality.

BTW, I once convinced a very creationist skeptic that evolution just might be
correct in like 3 hours. How? He was willing to listen and see that there just
might be an alternative explanation to the things he's seeing. He was willing
to accept a different point of view and my job was to present my case. Luckily
I did OK.

~~~
randallsquared
_There is plenty of room for debate if the skeptics stop polarizing and
politicizing the debate._

You're suggesting that the global warming folks would be willing to avoid
politicizing? If it weren't for the policy prescriptions and other political
fallout, the skeptics mostly wouldn't even care. I'm sure the vast majority of
the skeptics would be willing, even eager, to drop all potential politics from
the debate, but the whole reason it's important (from the viewpoint of such a
skeptic!) is that it's now more about politics than science.

~~~
pierrefar
Absolutely it's more about politics than science. What I don't understand is
that why politics got so injected so fiercely into the debate. Because of all
the anti-climate change efforts, the climate change case actually got better
as scientists did what they do best: they found more evidence to settle the
points of contention raised by the skeptics.

Are the skeptics listening to this new evidence objectively? All I hear from
them is "Ah yes, that may be so, but...".

~~~
krschultz
It is extremely easy to see how politics got injected into the debate.

There was a move from "these are our findings" to "lets try and stop global
warming". The second step requires government action. Hence, politics. If the
climate change scientists had stayed in the "lets refine our findings" area
then it would never be political. As soon as you say "lets get the government
to do something about this", it is political.

There will always be people who question why you should expand government. And
it is up to the people trying to expand the government to clearly show WHY we
need to.

What are you expecting? Some people show up with their computer models and say
LOOK, WE NEED TO DO SOMETHING, and no one would object? No one would look at
it critically? If the science was so indisputable then the bill would be
passed, just like the Clean Air and Clean Water acts were when they showed
real science on pollutants.

~~~
philwelch
You have a lot more faith than I do in the scientific literacy of our
political system. Before climate change became such a current issue, there was
serious controversy about whether or not we should teach schoolchildren about
evolution.

------
hzzn
A quote from

<http://www.uwgb.edu/dutchs/PSEUDOSC/GlobWarm.HTM>

    
    
        The science, reduced to its simplest terms, is that carbon dioxide
        is known to be effective at trapping solar heat. So are water
        vapor (the source of 90% of earth's natural greenhouse effect),
        methane, and other gases. The natural carbon dioxide content of the
        atmosphere has doubled in the last 200 years, climate is getting
        warmer, so the logical conclusion is that there is a connection
        between the two trends. If you feel uncomfortably warm at night and
        wake up to find someone has put another blanket over you, you don't
        need to look beyond that to identify the source of the warming.
    
        * Nobody - nobody - argues with the carbon dioxide trend. It's
        established beyond doubt.
    
        * The debate over whether climate is getting warmer is mostly over.
    
        * The debate now is over whether the connection between warming and
        human emission of carbon dioxide is real, or whether there are other
        causes of climate change at work.
    
        * The real issue is whether the benefits of taking action will
        outweigh the costs and regulatory burdens.
    
        * There are some who argue that warming will be beneficial by
        reducing energy demands for heating, lengthening growing seasons,
        and creating larger habitable and arable territory.
    
        The case for human-caused global warming is simultaneously a lot
        clearer than George W. Bush believes, and a whole lot less so than
        Al Gore does. There are legitimate questions about the data, past
        climate reconstructions, and the computer modeling still to be
        answered.

------
DanielBMarkham
The problem here has always been the nature of the debate, not the nature of
the science.

You can make a good case that these are just scientists blowing off steam in
informal e-mails -- or you could make the case that this is evidence that
scientific integrity has gone in the crapper.

I take a third view: the problem here is that people do not want to have an
honest debate. This is evident by the emotional content of the emails --
"idiots", etc. If you view yourself as the annointed and people who criticize
you as stupid rabble, then it becomes very, very difficult to correct course
when you screw up (as you inevitably will)

Getting emotionally attached to something and viewing yourself as an expert
are potentially intellectually crippling things to do, whether it's climate
science or database design.

~~~
Vivtek
I find it odd to say that the _climatologists_ are the ones uninterested in an
"honest debate". Not to mention that "honest debate" would involve
acknowledging who has the, you know, expertise in the field.

The reason they use the word "idiots" is that it is a descriptive term. Some
random schmoe with an opinion is not engaged in "debate" when he questions
scientific fact, and the emotional charge here is entirely due to the fact
that public opinion seems to think that such entitlement is perfectly
legitimate, when in point of fact it is a waste of everyone's time.

~~~
DanielBMarkham
_Some random schmoe with an opinion is not engaged in "debate" when he
questions scientific fact_

Sigh.

I'll do this one time, and then I have to get back to work.

Here's the deal: science is not dependent on "smarts". I can take a 4-year-old
kid and we can test Newton's Laws of Motion just fine without any knowledge of
algebra. In fact, the whole point about science being based on reproducible
experiments is that we take appeal to authority out of the mix. If we still
keep appeal to authority as a legitimate scientific tool of investigation then
we might as well be studying phrenology or Lysenksoism (look it up).

Now the appropriate response is: but this isn't about science, this is about
prevailing scientific opinion -- the best guess we have at what might happen.
If you're prepared to go there, that's awesome, because then we're in a spot
where we're talking about how political decisions get made, both inside and
outside of science. But in that case, both sides are more on equal ground
because the topics are all about how different groups arrive at various forms
of consensus, not science.

It's when you get the two mixed up that the discussion gets really out of
whack (to my lights, at least)

~~~
tome
Sorry this is disingenuous. Sure, science is not about appealing to a specific
authority, but you do need some background and training in it to be able to
pull off the necessary experiments and understand the theory.

How would you and your 4 year old go about deciding whether you believe in
Quantum Electrodynamics? Would you do an experiment, or would you ask an
expert?

~~~
DanielBMarkham
I would ask an expert who could show me a reproducible experiment.

~~~
dave_au
Not wanting to step into an argument here, but I'd like to tie it back to the
climate thing.

I think it's cool that you'd go to an expert to see a reproducible experiment.
I'm also going to assume that it goes without saying (could be putting words
in your mouth but it seems to flow from your responses) that you'd ask a lot
of questions if there was unfamiliar math or concepts and basically receive
very narrowly focused training in the fields around the experiment.

It's interesting to consider the likelihood/prevalence of the casual
commenters on climate change (ie the ones being referred to as idiots)
reproducing the climate scientists experiments or coming up to speed on the
maths/concepts behind the experiment to be able to critique the experiment in
the way that an expert in the field with an opinion opposed to the prevailing
thought could.

I know quite a few very vocal climate change skeptics and none of them have a
science background or the willingness to attain one, and they seem very proud
of that. Hopefully that's a local quirk of my small sample relative to the
population.

As an aside, if you can find a set of experts with the time to spend (plus,
you know, equipment and money) I'd bet a decent chunk of change that you could
take the prevailing scientific opinion and ask for reproducible experiments -
in this case a lot would involve analysis of data already given to explain why
they want to test want they want to - then you'd end up if not agreeing with
them then at seeing where they were coming from.

------
nkurz
The quotes used as examples in this article really don't do justice to the
damage that will be done by this leak. If the documents turn out to be
authentic, many of the participants will be spending years to come defending
themselves from academic disciplinary committees and criminal prosecutions.
Beyond the superficial 'blowing off steam', there's conspiracy to destroy
evidence in advance of FOIA requests, tax evasion, and overtly political data
manipulation.

It's ugly. It seems likely this will derail Copenhagen, and probably destroy
the political momentum for Climate Change legislation for years to come.

The sad part is that this really isn't an outcome desired by anyone who
actually cares about climate change as a scientific issue. This is a political
win for Big Oil, rather than resolution of the issues. Rather than refocusing
the issue on the science (as desired by the true skeptics) the issue becomes
politicized even further. A different team takes the lead, but the science
gets left even further behind.

~~~
tome
This confuses me. FOI in the UK only applies to government agencies. How can a
scientific body be required to release information?

~~~
forensic
Government funding = public is entitled to the data.

~~~
petercooper
If that were true then the postcode database would be public, but it ain't:
[http://ernestmarples.com/blog/2009/10/ernest-marples-
postcod...](http://ernestmarples.com/blog/2009/10/ernest-marples-postcodes-
has-been-threatened-by-the-royal-mail/)

------
gjm11
Title as submitted here is pure flamebait. Most of the quoted statements
aren't in fact problematic at all (many of them I would in fact describe as so
obviously not-problematic as to call into question the integrity of the person
offering them up as evidence of dishonesty, and I wouldn't be surprised if
every one of them turned out to have an innocent explanation), but even if
each of those quotations demonstrated that the person who sent it had no
integrity whatever, that would not justify the scare-quotes around
"scientists" (dishonest scientists are still scientists), nor the blanket
condemnation of "the climate scientists", as if the ones whose emails have
been pilfered are the only climate scientists in the world.

Better would be something like "Leaked email archive allegedly calls into
question the integrity of a few climate scientists". Better still would be
"62MB of climate science emails leaked; here are some alarming quotations" or
something.

~~~
jordyhoyt
"Dishonest scientists are still scientists"

I disagree. If they are not following the scientific method, but fudging their
data to agree with their pre-determined conclusions, they are not scientists.

~~~
gjm11
1\. Assuming, for the sake of argument, the most uncharitable interpretation
possible for all the quotations on display at the _Examiner_ , it seems to me
that most of them do not involve any sort of data-fudging.

2\. I appreciate the rhetorical point you're making, but I prefer to
distinguish between "not a scientist", "bad scientist" and "evildoing
scientist". (But I do agree that if someone's found to have been falsifying
results, whatever scientific work they've done is of little use to anyone
unless there's some reliable way to disentangle the fraudulent and non-
fraudulent bits.)

------
igrekel
Most of these comments from the email don't seem to be that much of a problem
really, unless you really believed that these people were not humans. And if
people are offended that they had this idea of "bad hands" remember that their
results existed for a long while and when opposition appeared it was financed
by large corporations and interest groups withe the explicit goal of denying
their findings.

Sadly that is what happens when you put people in a tough spot in terms of
public relations, public relations concerns start to take over everything.

------
ugh
Just one thing I would like to point out: many quoted statements in the
article are not in any way damning. At least not without further context.

To pick out just one quote: In what way is comment moderation on RealClimate
problematic?

~~~
febeling
But some are blatantly:

"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."

~~~
ugh
Might be. If trick means what you think it means. If hide means what you think
it means.

I have often seen people use "trick" meaning "useful change" and "hide"
meaning "doesn't show incorrect results". Without context there is no way to
tell. Such a statement is somewhat worrying, but not exactly blatant in any
way.

~~~
krschultz
Seriously? The level people will go to blindly defend these guys is
astounding. I just had flash backs to "it depends what the meaning of is is".

~~~
andreyf
Try approaching the quote without trying to prove any pre-conceived notions.
Similarly, I might say "I used John's useful hack in the logging module to
hide errors (from the user)".

~~~
InclinedPlane
Try approaching the quote without any pre-conceived notions on the meaning of
the English language. Similarly, I might say "I used John's hovercraft to hide
the fact (from my date) that mine was full of eels."

------
hop
I'm agnostic on climate change - haven't scrutinized the data myself. That
said...

Climate scientists that produce polarizing studies - either the world is
freezing or boiling (mostly the latter) get fame, fortune, respect from
colleagues and huge grants to further their groundbreaking research. They are
more incentivised to create a wow factor than to be rigorous and subjective
with the data.

------
cjoh
The EXAMINER is an organization filled with political operatives, not anybody
interested in telling any form of truth. They're about as bad as Fox news at
choosing between facts and agenda.

~~~
tome
Interesting from <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Examiner.com>

_Examiners are paid based on page views, or the "Gawker-model," made famous by
the blog Gawker.com. The more page views an Examiner generates, the more they
are reportedly paid.[citation needed]_

~~~
thaumaturgy
Huh, odd that Wikipedia had a "citation needed" note on there. This indeed is
exactly their business model; we found the same while scouting the news
publishing market.

~~~
imd
It doesn't seem odd to me; just because you find something to be true doesn't
mean it doesn't need a citation.

~~~
thaumaturgy
Oh, sorry! I agree, but that wasn't what I meant. What I meant was, we found
the information on their site, and I was surprised that WP hadn't gotten
around to it.

The relevant link is: <http://www.examiner.com/assets/examinerfaq.html>
(under, "Will I be compensated?")

I attempted to update the Wikipedia page, but found that the examiner.com
domain is blacklisted in WP -- page edits don't allow links to anything in
examiner.com.

So! Mystery solved, and it'll stay uncited because I'm not about to set aside
a bunch of paid projects to take on the bureaucracy that is Wikipedia.

------
chrisb
See [http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2009/11/the-
cr...](http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2009/11/the-cru-hack/)
for the other side of the story.

The oft-made claim about the non-availability of the climate model data can be
proven false by visiting:

<http://www-pcmdi.llnl.gov/ipcc/about_ipcc.php> \- contains all the models
used in the IPCC AR4

<http://tamino.wordpress.com/climate-data-links/> \- contains a huge amount of
climate data.

Of course, all this data is extremely complex, but it cannot be claimed that
it is unavailable.

------
motters
Even if you are a climate change skeptic, apply typical journalistic
investigation here. Perhaps the apparent damning statements are taken out of
context. Science is not about certainty, and there is always debate about what
the data really means. Also, those reporting the leak may not be politically
neutral, and may have their own hidden agendas.

------
joecode
I'm reposting this comment by "by" that got lost in the comments below. While
all this seems pretty damming, it could be misinformation.

 _Examiner.com seems to be owned by Clarity Digital Group who are in turn
owned by the Anschutz Company. The primary business of the Anschutz Company
appears to be "Support Activities for Oil and Gas
Operations".[http://dnb.powerprofiles.com/profile/874831126/ANSCHUTZ+COMP...](http://dnb.powerprofiles.com/profile/874831126/ANSCHUTZ+COMP..).
[http://investing.businessweek.com/research/stocks/private/sn...](http://investing.businessweek.com/research/stocks/private/sn..).
[http://www.fundinguniverse.com/company-histories/The-
Anschut...](http://www.fundinguniverse.com/company-histories/The-Anschut...*)

~~~
joecode
what, i'm being voted down? so sources don't matter? i don't know whether the
emails are authentic or not, but certainly there is cause for concern, no?

if you look at the other articles of the author, tony hake, you will see they
invariably fall into the "climate change skeptic" realm. maybe that's fine,
maybe not. the warning is simply: wait for verification before jumping to any
conclusions.

~~~
Maktab
The Examiner was not the source for the documents and emails, it merely picked
up on the story after it had appeared on some climate change skeptic sites
first. It had no role in this other than reporting on a story that already had
legs. Therefore the organisation's background and corporate structure is
irrelevant to this issue and bringing it up offers nothing new or of value to
the discussion.

------
patio11
In many scientific fields, having one's research methodology and professional
communications publicized would not be considered a bad thing.

Perhaps that was a low blow.

------
JulianMorrison
That sounds like scientists talking shop in the understanding they are trying
to extract structure out of intrinsically messy data, from a complex and
imperfectly modeled real world that contains causes unaccounted-for, while not
leaking the mess to a public and skeptics who really don't understand how the
real world looks and who expect clean sharp lines in the visible work product.

------
limist
The leaked files are available here at least:
<http://www.megaupload.com/?d=75J4XO4T>

If there's a better place to get/post it, please advise.

~~~
limist
Also, this is the blog where the files were first leaked to:

[http://noconsensus.wordpress.com/2009/11/19/leaked-foia-
file...](http://noconsensus.wordpress.com/2009/11/19/leaked-foia-files-62-mb-
of-gold/)

------
1gor

      If you think that Saiers is in the greenhouse skeptics
      camp, then, if we can find documentary evidence of this,
      we could go through official AGU channels to get him ousted.
    

Shameful. Going after your scientific opponents 'through official channels'
and getting them fired?

------
dzlobin
This is a great thing to do to show the world the truth. But I must say,
unlike politicians and celebrities, I admire the scientists' acceptance of
everything and no attempt to fight this.

