As many of you will be aware, a large number of emails from the Climatic Research Unit (CRU) at the University of East Anglia webmail server were hacked recently (Despite some confusion generated by Anthony Watts, this has absolutely nothing to do with the Hadley Centre which is a completely separate institution). As people are also no doubt aware the breaking into of computers and releasing private information is illegal, and regardless of how they were obtained, posting private correspondence without permission is unethical. We therefore aren’t going to post any of the emails here. We were made aware of the existence of this archive last Tuesday morning when the hackers attempted to upload it to RealClimate, and we notified CRU of their possible security breach later that day.
Nonetheless, these emails (a presumably careful selection of (possibly edited?) correspondence dating back to 1996 and as recently as Nov 12) are being widely circulated, and therefore require some comment. Some of them involve people here (and the archive includes the first RealClimate email we ever sent out to colleagues) and include discussions we’ve had with the CRU folk on topics related to the surface temperature record and some paleo-related issues, mainly to ensure that posting were accurate.
Since emails are normally intended to be private, people writing them are, shall we say, somewhat freer in expressing themselves than they would in a public statement. For instance, we are sure it comes as no shock to know that many scientists do not hold Steve McIntyre in high regard. Nor that a large group of them thought that the Soon and Baliunas (2003), Douglass et al (2008) or McClean et al (2009) papers were not very good (to say the least) and should not have been published. These sentiments have been made abundantly clear in the literature (though possibly less bluntly).
More interesting is what is not contained in the emails. There is no evidence of any worldwide conspiracy, no mention of George Soros nefariously funding climate research, no grand plan to ‘get rid of the MWP’, 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. The truly paranoid will put this down to the hackers also being in on the plot though.
Instead, there is a peek into how scientists actually interact and the conflicts show that the community is a far cry from the monolith that is sometimes imagined. People working constructively to improve joint publications; scientists who are friendly and agree on many of the big picture issues, disagreeing at times about details and engaging in ‘robust’ discussions; Scientists expressing frustration at the misrepresentation of their work in politicized arenas and complaining when media reports get it wrong; Scientists resenting the time they have to take out of their research to deal with over-hyped nonsense. None of this should be shocking.
It’s obvious that the noise-generating components of the blogosphere will generate a lot of noise about this. but it’s important to remember that science doesn’t work because people are polite at all times. Gravity isn’t a useful theory because Newton was a nice person. QED isn’t powerful because Feynman was respectful of other people around him. Science works because different groups go about trying to find the best approximations of the truth, and are generally very competitive about that. That the same scientists can still all agree on the wording of an IPCC chapter for instance is thus even more remarkable.
No doubt, instances of cherry-picked and poorly-worded “gotcha” phrases will be pulled out of context. One example is worth mentioning quickly. Phil Jones in discussing the presentation of temperature reconstructions stated that “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 paper in question is the Mann, Bradley and Hughes (1998) Nature paper on the original multiproxy temperature reconstruction, and the ‘trick’ is just to plot the instrumental records along with reconstruction so that the context of the recent warming is clear. Scientists often use the term “trick” to refer to a “a good way to deal with a problem”, rather than something that is “secret”, and so there is nothing problematic in this at all. As for the ‘decline’, it is well known that Keith Briffa’s maximum latewood tree ring density proxy diverges from the temperature records after 1960 (this is more commonly known as the “divergence problem”–see e.g. the recent discussion in this paper) and has been discussed in the literature since Briffa et al in Nature in 1998 (Nature, 391, 678-682). Those authors have always recommend not using the post 1960 part of their reconstruction, and so while ‘hiding’ is probably a poor choice of words (since it is ‘hidden’ in plain sight), not using the data in the plot is completely appropriate, as is further research to understand why this happens.
The timing of this particular episode is probably not coincidental. But if cherry-picked out-of-context phrases from stolen personal emails is the only response to the weight of the scientific evidence for the human influence on climate change, then there probably isn’t much to it.
There are of course lessons to be learned. Clearly no-one would have gone to this trouble if the academic object of study was the mating habits of European butterflies. That community’s internal discussions are probably safe from the public eye. But it is important to remember that emails do seem to exist forever, and that there is always a chance that they will be inadvertently released. Most people do not act as if this is true, but they probably should.
It is tempting to point fingers and declare that people should not have been so open with their thoughts, but who amongst us would really be happy to have all of their email made public?
Let he who is without PIN cast the the first stone.
Update: The official UEA statement is as follows:
“We are aware that information from a server used for research information
in one area of the university has been made available on public websites,”
the spokesman stated.“Because of the volume of this information we cannot currently confirm
that all of this material is genuine.”“This information has been obtained and published without our permission
and we took immediate action to remove the server in question from
operation.”“We are undertaking a thorough internal investigation and we have involved
the police in this enquiry.”
Update II: Please comment on the next thread.
This is an argumnet for total transperancy in data and methods.
It would be nice to get comments from the authors for lines like this. This can of course be understood in many ways…
I hope that posting of this small snippet doesn’t violate copyright, and I left the name out:
“I can’t see either of these papers being in the next IPCC report. Xxx and I will keep
them out somehow – even if we have to redefine what the peer-review literature is”
[Response: Bad papers clutter up assessment reports and if they don’t stand up as science, they shouldn’t be included. No-one can ‘redefine’ what the peer-reviewed literature is. – gavin]
You guys are great. Undoubtedly, you’ve read what has been released. You have to respond or risk losing all credibility.
Cheers
James
What about the documents?
Outrageous.
“It is tempting to point fingers and declare that people should not have been so open with their thoughts, but who amongst us would really be happy to have all of their email made public?”
I’d venture a guess at: “anyone without something to hide”.
Thanks – just received the CRU Hack notice from some global warming doubting colleagues. While it was obvious to me the quotes were taken out of context and not relevant (not to mention illegal) having a quick response from someone who was closer to the facts was a timely help.
Good post; many thanks for reacting so quickly. I think the enthusiasm with which many of the AGW-sceptics have jumped on this hack tells us more about the sceptics than the scientists. James Delingpole of the Telegraph, for example, is jumping up and down claiming that this may well be the greatest scandal of modern science.
[Response: Didn’t he claim that the last thing he was talking about was the greatest scandal? He is quickly going to run out of superlatives. – gavin]
But has any information gleamed from the leaked emails falsified ANY of the theories behind AGW? Not from what I’ve seen. It’s just the same old sceptic response: jump on any scrap of info, apply absolutely zero healthy scepticism about that information and claim it falsifies AGW when it patently doesn’t even come close.
But there is no doubt that these leaked emails will further polarise the debate and push more people into the “sceptic camp”. I feel sick with fear at our chances averting dangerous climate change.
If you looked through any organisation’s emails from the last ten years you’d find something that would raise a few eyebrows. The fact is the scientific consensus on climate change has been reached through the publication of thousands of peer-reviewed papers, field research and the lifetime’s work of some of humanity’s best minds. It’s obvious these emails didn’t even go through a spell-check let alone the rigorous peer-review process. Contrary to what the skeptics claim, the Royal Society, the US National Academy of Sciences, NASA and the world’s leading atmospheric scientists are not the agents of a clandestine global movement against the truth.
“Clearly no-one would have gone to this trouble if the academic object of study was the mating habits of European butterflies.”
That depends on whether or not people were trying to re-order the global economy on the basis of those butterfly studies. And whether or not some folks had tried to substitute the odd moth in order to “hide the decline.”
Asking people to delete emails, in an email, with the SUBJECT: line containing FOI is indeed a serious problem.
You say “Gravity isn’t a useful theory because Newton was a nice person.”
I agree. But isn’t it also true that Newtons antipathy towards Hooke and his use of his position in control of the Royal Society, ensured that the concept of an achromatic lens for a telescope – which would have competed with his mirror solution – had to wait until after his death before someone was brave enough to think the “impossible”?
I always assume that anything I write and send in an email, or post on an Internet site can be exposed to the widest public scrutiny and operate on that basis. For fellow professionals to do otherwise is naieve.
This will run and run I’m afraid.
I hate to always harp on the graphics, but one of the time series Jones et al are talking about, with the data “added in”, might be useful here.
And, having read a couple hundred of the emails, that does seem to be the worst they’ve got. Even the “mocking the dead denier” thing seems based on misreading the email in question.
Thank you for this clarification. We have posted your response in conjunction with the others stories emerging.
Sid Burgess
National Director
NewsFifty
RC, thank you for this even-handed explanation. It makes sense that any inter-office dialogue is not meant for public consumption and is therefor more candid than not. In the few brief texts I have read on different news sites there is I think a reserve in language and candidness that is admirable. RC and CRU will have to answer to the most disturbing of issues. Most likely the one most damaging is any discussion of ways to avoid releasing data and hiding behind IP agreements. FOI disclosures are a primary and valuable component of the democratic process and any attempts to subvert that process is cause for great concern.
Again, thank you for a measured and calm response to what I am sure is a distressing disclosure of personal communications within the delegated climate community. I look forward to hearing from your members further.
Yes, a great shame that private emails have been exposed in this way, and also very sad the way some people have used these to further their anti-science/anti-certain scientists agenda. All the emails seem to show is that scientists are human and get emotional about the matters that concern them – great revelation, not.
However, we will be hearing a lot about this in the Denialosphere for a long while yet, even though the substance, as usual, is thin. It will be another one to add to the long, long list that is ‘final proof that Global Warming is a hoax’. And it won’t be the last.
Let’s just move on and stick to the science.
Clearly emails without context can be misleading. Just curious how you view thisone:
From: Phil Jones
To: “Michael E. Mann”
Subject: IPCC & FOI
Date: Thu May 29 11:04:11 2008
Mike,
Can you delete any emails you may have had with Keith re AR4?
Keith will do likewise. He’s not in at the moment – minor family crisis.
Can you also email Gene and get him to do the same? I don’t have his new email address.
We will be getting Caspar to do likewise.
I see that CA claim they discovered the 1945 problem in the Nature paper!!
Cheers
Phil
Prof. Phil Jones
Climatic Research Unit
http://blogs.news.com.au/heraldsun/andrewbolt/index.php/heraldsun/comments/hadley_hacked#63657
PS: I a runner, daffy duck is my nickname.
What I love is that it’s so controversial these were “leaked” in the first place.
Shouldn’t any person collecting public money, using public resources, etc be open to sunshine laws from the start? I would think the cavalier attitude shows more about the insulation of the subjects from the people they joyfully cash checks from. Much less just have independent non-involved entities verify their work.
What context should this one be seen in. Please explain.
At 06:25 28/09/2009, xxx xxxxxx wrote: xxxx, Here are some speculations on correcting SSTs to partly explain the 1940s warming blip. If you look at the attached plot you will see that the land also shows the 1940s blip (as I’m sure you know). So, if we could reduce the ocean blip by, say, 0.15 degC, then this would be significant for the global mean — but we’d still have to explain the land blip. I’ve chosen 0.15 here deliberately. This still leaves an ocean blip, and i think one needs to have some form of ocean blip to explain the land blip (via either some common forcing, or ocean forcing land, or vice versa, or all of these). When you look at other blips, the land blips are 1.5 to 2 times (roughly) the ocean blips — higher sensitivity plus thermal inertia effects. My 0.15 adjustment leaves things consistent with this, so you can see where I am coming from. Removing ENSO does not affect this. It would be good to remove at least part of the 1940s blip, but we are still left with “why the blip”. Let me go further. If you look at NH vs SH and the aerosol effect (qualitatively or with MAGICC) then with a reduced ocean blip we get continuous warming in the SH, and a cooling in the NH — just as one would expect with mainly NH aerosols. The other interesting thing is (as Foukal et al. note — from MAGICC) that the 1910-40 warming cannot be solar. The Sun can get at most 10% of this with Wang et al solar, less with Foukal solar. So this may well be NADW, as Sarah and I noted in 1987 (and also Schlesinger later). A reduced SST blip in the 1940s makes the 1910-40 warming larger than the SH (which it currently is not) — but not really enough. So … why was the SH so cold around 1910? Another SST problem? (SH/NH data also attached.) This stuff is in a report I am writing for EPRI, so I’d appreciate any comments you (and Ben) might have. xxx.
[Response: This relates to the known problem in the SST records (as discussed here) related to changes in measuring technology and attempts to assess how important it is. The reworked raw data with corrections for this has not yet been released, and so people want to have a heuristic that might help see what impact they will have on any analysis that relied on the original (uncorrected data). – gavin]
I would be happy to have all my e-mail correspondence directly related to my work published in the public domain.
This is low and disgusting– time to call the police and Scotland Yard.
What I want to know is how do we know for sure that (a) these are the actual emails, and (b) that the body text has not been fiddled with? That said, I’m sure all of us have regretting hitting “send” on more than one occasion.
If only we could see what McIntyre and Watts et al. divulge when in contact with each other. Now that would be entertaining. Taking the high road is definitely the best option here, so I am not advocating that someone hack into their systems– tat would be wrong on so any levels. What surprises me is that CA and WUWT and AirVent have all released these supposed emails before taking the trouble to vet them and determining that they have not been tampered with. By publishing material obtained illegally are they now now partners in the crime? Surely they must be.
What a sad state of affairs. Am I correct in understanding that they also tried to hack into the RC server?
What of the emails talking about keeping the skeptics (assuming they are talking about climate scientists who are skeptical about particular numbers or methods) out of certain reports or venues?
I managed to get a third of the way through the comments at WUWT when it became clear that every email being cited was at worst ambiguous, that the authors had confidence in science, weren’t engaged in anything nefarious, and were frustrated with ‘skeptics’ disinformation. Unfortunately, the denizens at WUWT have such a voracious appetite for red flags, that any bit of ambiguity was pounced on as proof of wrong-doing. One avid contributor espoused that MBH was spurious according to ‘those in the know’, not realizing that the email was referring to McIntyre and McKitrick. As the acronym was ‘MM’, the contributor probably assumed it was ‘Michael Mann’.
A neutral reader will see the emails for what they are. Reproducing the hackery is a low mark for CA and WUWT. I trust honest doubters will find that a little odious.
Certainly some interesting e-mails, looks like the eagerness of some of your contributors to spread the warmth around, isn’t liked by some of others.
Perhaps a little more openness and candour with background data and less mounting of the high horse when “non-climatologists” raise questions may be the way to go in future?
The email which describe the peer review process, leaning on editors, etc. has done much to discredit science as a whole. I have reviewed papers. What I see in those emails is very disappointing.
[Response: The paper and journal in question were indeed a scandal. But the scandal was that it was ever published. Six editors of the journal resigned in protest at the publication, not because of pressure. – gavin]
no mention of George Soros nefariously funding climate research
Really? Oh darn…
For business people it is a fundamental rule to assume that any email you write may someday be read in open court.
Yes, let’s let the debate continue.
Sadly, there is damning proof here that the scientists haven’t been behaving themselves.
Ignore the security issue and outrage, the content here is most certainly exceedingly serious.
Let’s hope the media and legal people also behave themselves and act professionally and in accordance with data, not assumptions.
When someone bothered me about this on Twitter, I came to this blog first. Thank you for publishing a response so quickly– who could have guessed otherwise that “hiding the decline” referred to a divergence between temperature readings and real temperatures in dendrochronology?
[Response: In a particular record – not all of dendrochronology – and this is something that has been public, and publicly discussed since 1998. Hardly news. – gavin]
I often wonder what would happen were even one climate scientist to take the time and effort to take a member/members of the denialists to court for the many, many instances of outright slander, libel and defamation that go on.
Imagine the science held up to the light of day of a court proceeding. Imagine these people being proven to have lied. Imagine a huge settlement of jail time.
Of course, you could get a clueless judge who announces Gore was wrong justa little and then the deniers would go around saying he lied about everything…
Still, there are some air-tight examples of slanderous, libelous and defamatory stuff out there…
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/8370282.stm
“The e-mail system of one of the world’s leading climate research units has been breached by hackers”
“Researchers at CRU, one of the world’s leading research bodies on natural and human-induced climate change, played a key role in the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s (IPCC) Fourth Assessment Report, which is considered to be the most authoritative report of its kind.”
Not surprised at RC’s response but I am surprised at the very few comments here considering the size of this story.
Nice try but to anyone perusing these emails the clear impression is of scientists trying to present their work in a way most favorable to their agenda rather than in a way most conducive to a fair interpretation of their data.
[Response: Not true. Read the emails dealing with the IPCC report editing process. Lots of discussions (and disagreements), but that end up in compromise language that the authors and reviewers mostly agree on. – gavin]
The hacker’s words at: http://noconsensus.wordpress.com/2009/11/13/open-letter/ . Will it be all?
We feel that climate science is, in the current situation, too important to be kept under wraps. We hereby release a random selection of correspondence, code, and documents. Hopefully it will give some insight into the science and the people behind it. This is a limited time offer, download now:
( – http://ftp.tomcity.ru – no longer works
Let’s leave Mr. Gore out of this as he has demonstrated over and over that his actual knowledge of climate science is limitted at best. This is not about him, but about the methodoly of stats etc, and the credibility of science as a whole.
This needs to be fully vetted so that science regains its stature of beyond political driven agendas, that what is peer reviewed actually has merit and is worthy of thought and contemplation.
From the main essay:
The time and attention that scientists spend worrying about how their words may be inadvertently or deliberately misconstrued will equal to or greater than that which is removed from what could be spent on the performance of science itself. Moreover, science is a community activity, it depends upon their being able to communicate with one another — and the more open and effective such communication is the less guarded it will necessarily be. Sometimes I wonder whether the somewhat justified paranoia that various acts of quote-mining results in and the consequent drop in output and productivity may be a very large part of the point of such exercises in the first place. To the extent that one contributes to the scientific endeavor, it must be set aside.
Again, I write to the moderator. What did I write that was so inflammatory that you would not post it? I have not attempted to stir anything up? I would like to know the truth. Thats all. The truth needs no moderation nor to be covered up. What is wrong with my saying that? Maybe you can post this and a response as I don’t see what could possibly be wrong with this post.
My only questions now is…
I hear a lot about the FOIA and data that was being withheld that is now lost or destroyed. Is there an explanation or a reference to that which would answer what I have been hearing on the other end?
[Response: No data has been lost or destroyed. – gavin]
The deniers have also infiltrated and email thread and list by Canadian Meteorological and Oceanographic Society and Canadian Geophysical Union email threads. They Dough Leahey (Friends of Science) and Tom Harris (International Climate Science Coalition) have also been harassing people on that list.
The deniers have no bounds on how low they will stoop.
“From Phil Jones:
The skeptics seem to be building up a head of steam here! … The IPCC comes in for a lot of stick. Leave it to you to delete as appropriate! Cheers Phil
PS I’m getting hassled by a couple of people to release the CRU station temperature data. Don’t any of you three tell anybody that the UK has a Freedom of Information Act !”
“From Michael E. Mann:
Anyway, I wanted you guys to know that you’re free to use RC [RealClimate.org – A supposed neutral climate change website] Rein any way you think would be helpful. Gavin and I are going to be careful about what comments we screen through, and we’ll be very careful to answer any questions that come up to any extent we can. On the other hand, you might want to visit the thread and post replies yourself. We can hold comments up in the queue and contact you about whether or not you think they should be screened through or not, and if so, any comments you’d like us to include.”
“From Phil Jones:
If FOIA does ever get used by anyone, there is also IPR to consider as well. Data is covered by all the agreements we sign with people, so I will be hiding behind them.”
“From Phil Jones:
Mike, Can you delete any emails you may have had with Keith re AR4? Keith will do likewise. He’s not in at the moment – minor family crisis. Can you also email Gene and get him to do the same? I don’t have his new email address. We will be getting Caspar to do likewise.”
Have any rational explanations for these particular pieces of information?
I agree with much of the sentiment. As I said this morning:
I often write emails to pals of mine that are in shorthand, that take many things for granted, that begin with understood knowledge, and that if they were read out of context could be construed as damning.
It’s easy to do produce indictments. It’s as simple as adding “in bed” to the end of Chinese fortune cookies. “You will have great success in the future” suddenly takes on an entirely new meaning for somebody intent on discovering an x-rated conspiracy among fortune cookie writers.
—–
Of course, it’s a separate question whether GCMs have skill, and there is some insight to be gained into that.
Surely SDann can provide us with specific evidence of such proof. Go for it …
I am sure, once the dust has settled on this matter, Science, Scientists and all their hard work, will be held in the regard it deserves.
One purported email says:
“guys, I see that Science has already gone online w/ the new issue, so we put up the RC post. By now, you’ve probably read that nasty McIntyre thing. Apparently, he violated the embargo on his website (I don’t go there personally, but so I’m informed).
Anyway, I wanted you guys to know that you’re free to use RC in any way you think would be helpful. Gavin and I are going to be careful about what comments we screen through, and we’ll be very careful to answer any questions that come up to any extent we can. On the other hand, you might want to visit the thread and post replies yourself. We can hold comments up in the queue and contact you about whether or not you think they should be screened through or not, and if so, any comments you’d like us to include.
You’re also welcome to do a followup guest post, etc. think of RC as a resource that is at your disposal to combat any disinformation put forward by the McIntyres of the world. Just let us know. We’ll use our best discretion to make sure the skeptics dont’get to use the RC comments as a megaphone…”
I’m not a sceptic (far from it…I’ve been involved in climate science for a long time and have been convinced about AGW for years) but I do think that this sends a pretty crap message to everyone. If RC is screening posts to push a particular point then it’s not that much better in that regard than a lot of the sceptic sites.
[Response: This is a moderated site, and always has been. We do screen out a lot of the random squawk of the blogosphere and the baseless accusations of malfeasance that are commonplace on open forums. We do that unapologetically in order to maximise the signal-to-noise ratio in threads. When there are technical issues that we aren’t qualified to judge, we often ask people more involved to comment – and these comments appear inline with the questions so that the answers are not lost and are provided at the same time as the question appears. This leaves a record for later readers that is much easier to follow. We don’t screen out comments just because they disagree with us (as is evident in any comment thread). – gavin]
Your anger at people for simply asking questions and trying to replicate results is damning.
[Response: Nonsense. Anger is restricted to people who misrepresent views and make up false accusations. Asking real questions about real issues is welcome. – gavin]
A couple of comments. First, my kudos to the scientists in those e-mails for the calm and quick reaction to having what is clearly (some) personal information posted. I think that the way you handled the post above ranks up there with the urban legend about the Barbie / Hominid skull rejection letter.
Second, can you please continue to post clarifications to the little bits of the science that get quoted. The personal comments need no further discussion.
Third, in regards to the people above who claim that they consider every e-mail has the potential to end up in court. While that my be true in the business world, science depends on a clear and open exchange of ideas. You can see that in some of the letters here as the scientists propose ideas and analyze others. While this is actually the normal course of science, it can provide endless fuel for those interested in muddying the waters.
John
It’s difficult to know at this stage whether any or all of the hacked and released data are real or fabricated. I guess the only way to know for sure and to re-establish confidence is for researchers to release their original data now and compare it to the hacked data. I find it offensive that some on this website somehow consider that the release of data to be inappropriate and that only certain climatologists are qualified to view it. Sounds like Scientology or Mormonism to me, not science.
very weak attempt at damage control. i can hear you tripping over your feet as you backpedal.
JohnAnnArbor, what anger? Given the awful circumstances, RC and people posting here have been civil and calm. So please stop trying to antagonize people.
In the Nature trick, didn’t they also use the instrumental data as part of the smoothing, averaging in instrumental record calibrated values rather than the actual proxy data, to hide the decline, thus affecting the part that wasn’t cut off as well?