Over the last two days the blogosphere has been alive with the news that hackers have stolen data from the Climate Reasearch Unit in the UK and exposed emails that appear to confirm that scientists have been massaging data to enhance the impression that Global Warming is significant.
The CRU which is part of East Anglia University is the principal centre in the UK for providing and analysing data on the worlds climate. Its influence through the IPCC is global, so if these allegations are true then the whole spectrum of scientific research into climate change will be thrown into disarray.
To give an example of the kind of corresponsence revealed, here is an extract of an e-mail apparently sent by Phil Jones to Michael Mann in 2005:
Mike,
I presume congratulations are in order – so congrats etc !
Just sent loads of station data to Scott. Make sure he documents everything better this time ! And don’t leave stuff lying around on ftp sites – you never know who is trawling them. The two MMs 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. Does your similar act in the US force you to respond to enquiries within 20 days? – our does ! The UK works on precedents, so the first request will test it.
We also have a data protection act, which I will hide behind. Tom Wigley has sent me a worried email when he heard about it – thought people could ask him for his model code. He has retired officially from UEA so he can hide behind that. IPR should be relevant here, but I can see me getting into an argument with someone at UEA who’ll say we must adhere to it !
This email, if genuine, appears to show that people are deliberately trying to avoid their obligations under the Freedom of Information Act. If this is what it means then the UK police need to raid the CRU quickly before they have time to wipe any further evidence. If it is not true then the CRU need to clarify what this means or confirm that it is faked. So far none of these things has happened.
Over at RealCimate they claim that these e-mails are private correspondence and should never have been made public. That is rubbish. These are e-mails sent as part of government funded research by a public organisation. As such they must be archived and made available to the public on request in accordance with the UK Freedom of Information Act. The trouble is that these emails show the lengths to which these so called scientists are prepared to go to evade the regulations.
