Climategate

Climategate refers to the scandal over exposed emails showing fraud and manipulations by scientists concerning the Global Warming Controversy, a theory which asserts that human activity causes dangerous increases in temperatures and thus climate change. On November 19, 2009, climate science was severely shaken by the release of a collection of email messages, together with a collection of data and data processing programs, that were hacked or revealed by a whistle blower from the University of East Anglia Climatic Research Unit (CRU) in the UK, one of the key centers of global warming research. These emails and text files have been the subject of intense debate, calling to question assumptions on anthropogenic (man-made) global warming; evidence revealed told the truth about man-made global warming: it's a fraud.

The scandal that the suffix –gate implies is the state of climate science over the past decade revealed by a thousand emails, documents, and computer code sets between various prominent scientists released following the leaked data from the Climate Research Unit. Climategate is said to have revealed the biggest scientific hoax in world history as the worst scandal of this generation.

Climategate scandal

On December 10, 2009, Roy W. Spencer, Ph. D., showed the potential effects of sunspot activity on climate, detailing solar geomagnetic to earth climate connections. On the subject of solar activity affecting climate variations, the geomagnetic modulation of cloudiness has about 10 times the effect on the amount of sunlight absorbed by the Earth as does the solar cycle’s direct modulation of the sun’s output. It also rivals the level of forcing due to anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions, but with way more variability from year to year and decade to decade. (Can anyone say, “natural climate variability”?)

Climate science was troubled after news reports of the Climategate scandal went public, by the release of a thousand email messages and a collection of data and data processing programs from the University of East Anglia Climatic Research Unit. The trustworthiness of the scientific community's global warming data pool was called into question, and it appeared to have worsened for global warming theorists after another revelation came about on November 29, with the publication of a report by The Sunday Times of London. It was reported that scientists at the University of East Anglia’s Climate Research Unit in the United Kingdom confessed to throwing out most of the raw temperature data on which the theory of global warming is founded. The admittance occurred following requests for the data under Freedom of Information legislation. Michelle Malkin reported that the University of East Anglia, the research institution at the center of Climategate, also detailed one of the many problems that will occur as a result of such data loss, "It means that other academics are not able to check basic calculations said to show a long-term rise in temperature over the past 150 years."

• On December 01, 2009, Phil Jones, the director of the embattled Climatic Research Unit in the United Kingdom stepped down pending the investigation into allegations that he overstated the case for man-made climate change.

• Michael Mann is under investigation by Pennsylvania State University.

• Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI) had their attorneys file three Notices of Intent to File Suit against NASA. Chris Horner, representing CEI, said the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies failed to comply with the Freedom of Information Act for the past three years.

The CBC’s Rex Murphy also discussed Climategate in an editorial on December 03, 2009.

“

...Climate science has shown to be, in part, a sub-branch of climate politics. It is a situation intolerable even to serious minds who are on side with Global warming. Such as Clive Crook, who wrote in Atlantic magazine about this scandal as follows: 'the stink of intellectual corruption is overpowering'. Climate science needs its own reset button. And Climategate should be seen not primarily as a set-back, but as an opportunity to cleans scientific method, to take science away from politics, good causes and alarmists. And vest climate science in bodies of guaranteed neutrality, openness, real in vigorous debate; and away from the lobbyists, the advocates, the Gore's, and professional environmentalists of all kinds. Too many of the current leadership on Global warming are more players than observers, gatekeepers and not investigators, angry partisans of some global engineering, rather than the humble servants of the facts of the case. Read the e-mails, you'll never think of climate science quite the same way again.

”

Three takeaways

Iain Murray at Pajamas Media pointed out three takeaways that people must know about Climategate.

1. First, the scientists discuss manipulating data to get their preferred results. The most prominently featured scientists are paleoclimatologists, who reconstruct historical temperatures and who were responsible for a series of reconstructions that seemed to show a sharp rise in temperatures well above historical variation in recent decades.

2. Secondly, scientists on several occasions discussed methods of subverting the scientific peer review process to ensure that skeptical papers had no access to publication. In 2003, Tom Wigley of the University Corporation for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colorado, complained that paleoclimatologist Hans von Storch was responsible for “the publication of crap science ‘in order to stimulate debate’” and that they “must get rid of von Storch” (1051190249) as an editor of the journal Climate Research (he indeed subsequently resigned).

3. Finally, the scientists worked to circumvent the Freedom of Information process of the United Kingdom.

Data Manipulation

Climategate shows strong evidence of fraud, and may show smoking-gun proof of a cover-up by CRU scientists to exaggerate the existence, causation, and threat of global warming. From Cube Antics, by Robert Greiner, who is a scientist and engineer "with an agnostic stand on global warming," he offered a statement about the research methods of the CRU, attempting to show proof that they had the means and intent to falsify data. Greiner pointed out that the CRU emails alone do not provide sufficient proof that the CRU was deliberately tampering with their data. What the emails do show is that climate scientists may have committed a felony using government funded money; moreover, within the collection of data and data processing programs, code from the CRU shows proof that valid temperature station readings were taken and skewed to fabricate the results the "scientists" wanted to believe, not what actually occurred. Analysis of the CRU's code revealed the foundation for the manipulated temperature readings. Greiner reiterated his findings:

“

First and foremost, this doesn’t necessarily prove anything about global warming as science. It just shows that all of the data that was the chief result of most of the environmental legislation created over the last decade was a farce. This means that all of those billions of dollars we spent as a global community to combat global warming may have been for nothing. If news station anchors and politicians were trained as engineers, they would be able to find real proof and not just speculate about the meaning of emails that only made it appear as if something illegal happened.

”

On December 05, 2009, Robert Greiner pointed out the four most frequent concerns dealing with the CRU’s source code:

1. The source code that actually printed the graph was commented out and, therefore, is not valid proof.

2. No proof exists that shows this code was used in publishing results.

3. Interpolation is a normal part of dealing with large data sets, this is no different.

4. You need the raw climate data to prove that foul play occurred.

After further analysis, his first concern pointed out that the source code that printed the graph was commented out and thus is not valid proof. On the second concern, Greiner clarified that, "Enough proof exists that the CRU had both the means and intent to intentionally falsify data. This means that all of their research results cannot be trusted until they are verified. Period." The third concern as pointed out by Greiner is not about the fact that the CRU researchers used interpolation; the issue is the weight of the "valadj" array with respect to the raw data. Greiner said, "valadj simply introduces too large of an influence to the original data to do anything productive with it." Fourthly, Greiner said that raw climate data is needed to prove that foul play has actually occurred. He said, "It simply doesn’t matter if the raw climate data are correct or not to demonstrate the extreme bias the valadj array forces on the raw data. So, the raw data could actually be temperature data or corporate sales figures, the result is the same; a severe manipulation of data."

8 Year Downtrend Continues in Global Temps. Dr. Roy Spencer in June 2009 announced on his blog that June's anomaly globally using the Aqua satellite dropped to 0.001C. This continued downtrend started after 2001, and is another indicator Global Warming alarmists have certain embodied a hoax. It was also reported: Sea Level Rise; A Major Non-existent Threat Exploited by Alarmists: Truth about sea level is a major casualty of the war to implement whatever is deemed necessary to implement legislation to increase Big Government power and control, including Socialist Income redistribution ideologies. Canada Free Press - http://www.climatedepot.com/

Hockey Stick Graph

In one e-mail dated November 1999, CRU chief P.D. Jones wrote to Michael Mann, Raymond Bradley, and Malcolm Hughes:

“

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.

”

Michael Mann's hockey stick graph hid the real declining temperatures and instead showed a warming trend. Mann's graph portrayed temperatures as steadily declining since medieval times and then sharply rising in the last century and a half. Notably, his reconstruction fueled claims that 1998 and following years had the highest temperatures in 1,000 years. Once it became publicly known that man-made global warming is a hoax, as a direct result of the e-mail discussing a "trick" for adding data to each temperature series for the last 20 years, Climategate motivated the making of a video called, "Hide The Decline."

Critique of the Hockey Stick Reconstruction

• Corrections To The Mann et. al. (1998) Proxy Data Base And Northern Hemispheric Average Temperature Series by Stephen McIntyre and Ross McKitrick, Energy & Enviornment volume 14, 2003.
• The Decay of the Hockey Stick by Von Storch published on the journal Nature's blog, May 3, 2007.
• A Global Warming Bombshell by Richard A. Muller, Technology Review , Oct. 2004; calls into question famous graph by Michael Mann.
• Reconstructing Past Climate from Noisy Data by Hans von Storch, Eduardo Zorita, Julie M. Jones, Yegor Dimitriev, Fidel González-Rouco, Simon F. B. Tett, Science magazine, 22 October 2004.

Subverting the scientific peer review process

The CRU scientists, from the e-mails, on several occasions discussed methods of subverting the scientific peer review process to ensure that skeptical papers had no access to publication. As scientific data began showing a downtrend after 2001, the e-mails show a criminal intent to create fraudulent data, and defraud the public of millions of dollars with a cap and trade scheme as part of a Global Warming movement.

Freedom of Information Act

Climate scientists at the CRU worked to circumvent the Freedom of Information Act process in the UK. The Freedom of Information Act explicitly forbids deletion of any material subject to a FOIA request. The penalty for such a criminal act is a fine of up to £5,000. Presumably being found guilty of such an act, or even suggesting it, would also bring about significant disciplinary procedures at any reputable university.

Copenhagen

Sarah Palin called for President Obama to skip Copenhagen, the climate summit in Denmark, because of the information Climategate exposed. She commented on Facebook that the president should reconsider his trip until the e-mails can be investigated, "Boycotting Copenhagen while this scandal is thoroughly investigated would send a strong message that the United States government will not be a party to fraudulent scientific practices." Instead, the White House, in its attempt to downplay the controversial leaked e-mails of climate scientists, announced that President Obama was "doubling down" on his commitment to the summit's goals, hoping to secure a "meaningful" agreement.

Global reactions to data on climate change

Obama administration

In a case of see nothing, hear nothing, say nothing, the Obama administration showed commitment to climate change legislation and at the same time dismissive of Climategate. Despite evidence that researchers manipulated data, suppressed data, and stifled dissent — revealed from the e-mail messages from the CRU — John Holdren, Obama's science czar, who is directly involved in CRU’s unfolding Climategate scandal, stated boldly, "The science is proper and this is about a small fraction of research on the issue." The reality is that this small 'fraction of research' — the theory which is the foundation of anthropogenic global warming — the data used by CRU scientists, it is proven fraudulent. The theory which used to hold human beings responsible: it is nothing more than a Global warming scam, according to Jim O'Neill from the Canada Free Press. The scientists at the CRU, from the evidence found in their e-mails and documents, show a criminal intent to defraud the public of massive amounts of money, and at the same time advance an ideological Leftist agenda.

U.S. Congressional comments

When House Republicans asked for a hearing or investigation into the issue, independent from the Penn State University which is looking into the e-mails by its own researcher, Michael Mann, calls for further investigation were criticized and then rejected by Democrats. U.S. Representative James Sensenbrenner (R-Wisconsin) said, "These e-mails show a pattern of suppression, manipulation and secrecy that was inspired by ideology, condescension and profit." Democrats harbored ill will against the facts and continued to theorize that the earth is warming, insisting that the fraudulent data "[does] nothing to undermine the very strong scientific consensus," which showed a warming trend and claimed it is largely a result of human activity. The top Democrat on the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, Barbara Boxer, a global warming alarmist, said of the scandal, "You call it 'Climategate'; I call it 'E-mail-theft-gate." Rather than investigate the fraud and manipulation of scientific data that was used by climate science researchers, Boxer hoped to get her hands on the so-called 'real' criminals, those who stole released e-mails and data to the public.

Other countries take notice

While U.S. Democratic politicians downplayed the Climategate controversy, and despite the U.N.'s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change scoffing at Climategate by suggesting it provided no basis for questioning the science behind global warming, global reactions from other countries around the world took notice of the scandal. Saudi Arabia called for an independent investigation into Climategate, warning that the scandal over stolen e-mails threatened to undermine the global-warming negotiations. "The level of confidence is certainty shaken," said the Saudi Arabian negotiator. "We believe this scandal — or what has been referred to as the ‘Climategate’ scandal — we think this is definitely going to affect the nature of what could be trusted in our deliberations." Elsewhere, Australia had planned on setting an example to lead in the fight on climate change, to become one of the first countries to install a cap and trade system. However, due to an "emissions trading scheme" Climategate revealed, Liberal Party members within Australia’s parliament realized that cap and trade is based on flawed science. Liberal MP’s resigned rather than voted for a cap and trade scheme.

Climategate coverage

Main article : Climategate media coverage

In the wake of the Climategate scandal, a truly bizarre situation happened; the mainstream media stories about global warming pretended the uncovered documents never happened. This worldwide media cover-up also occurred before the public had learned about Climategate, too. The U.K. Daily Mail pointed out that, a month prior to November 19, 2009, the first unreported instance where political ideology reigned over journalistic duties happened over at BBC News:

“

The BBC received copies of some of the CRU emails more than a month ago, but did nothing about them, sitting on explosive evidence of fraud.

”

As Climategate was totally ignored by most TV news outlets, Fox News appeared to be the only national news media in America interested in the growing scandal. Perhaps the MSM felt that by ignoring Climategate entirely that it would have just gone away. However, just as the case was during the Tea Party Movement, notably during the Tax Day Tea Party, bloggers and the readers of the global warming stories kept bringing up the inconvenient truth of Climategate by mentioning the scandal "over and over and over again."

External links

• Watts Up With That? - Commentary on puzzling things in life, nature, science, weather, climate change, technology, and recent news by Anthony Watts
• Climate Depot - Continuously Updated 'ClimateGate' News Round Up
• PJTV Covers Climategate - Full coverage of how scientists cooked data on climate change
• ClimateGate - Learn about the Climategate emails