The University of East Anglia Climate Research Unit has had its email system hacked and a large amount of data released to the internet. The director of the unit (Dr. Phil Jones) has confirmed the leaked emails are genuine. The real story is the suspicious content of the emails. For example:
Once Tim’s got a diagram here we’ll send that either later today or first thing tomorrow. 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 [sic] from1961 for Keith’s to hide the decline.
I’ve spent a majority of my life working in the sciences. Phrases like trick of adding in the real temps and hide the decline should never occur in relation to honest science. From another email:
The fact is that we can’t account for the lack of warming at the moment and it is a travesty that we can’t. The CERES data published in the August BAMS 09 supplement on 2008 shows there should be even more warming: but the data are surely wrong. Our observing system is inadequate.
Note the bias in the view. With lack of evidence of increasing temperatures the conclusion is that the observation system must be wrong. It has to be warming, we just can’t measure it. Hot Air has much much more.
I can promise you I will continue to follow this story. Details to be posted as they are uncovered.
Update:There is some speculation that the leaked documents weren’t the result of a hack, but the result of whistle blowing by someone on the inside. While this might not change the legality of the activity, it might change a discussion of ethics.
Many are covering the story which has been coined Climategate:
What’s Up With That? is taking a lead on updates.
Update: FOXNews has now picked up the story–it is the featured story on foxnews.com.
I’m sure CNN and MSNBC are just waiting for detailed reports from the many people they have assigned to this story…
Update: Instapundit posts on the story, linking to Slashdot and comments from Tim Blair.
