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Hackers leak e-mails, stoke climate debate
By DAVID STRINGER (AP) � 58 minutes ago
LONDON < Computer hackers have broken into a server at a well-respected
climate change research center in Britain and posted hundreds of private
e-mails and documents online < stoking debate over whether some scientists
have overstated the case for man-made climate change.
The University of East Anglia, in eastern England, said in a statement
Saturday that the hackers had entered the server and stolen data at its
Climatic Research Unit, a leading global research center on climate change.
The university said police are investigating the theft of the information,
but could not confirm if all the materials posted online are genuine.
More than a decade of correspondence between leading British and U.S.
scientists is included in about 1,000 e-mails and 3,000 documents posted on
Web sites following the security breach last week.
Some climate change skeptics and bloggers claim the information shows
scientists have overstated the case for global warming, and allege the
documents contain proof that some researchers have attempted to manipulate
data.
The furor over the leaked data comes weeks before the U.N. climate
conference in Copenhagen, when 192 nations will seek to reach a binding
treaty to reduce emissions of carbon dioxide and other heat-trapping
greenhouse gases worldwide. Many officials < including U.N.
Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon < regard the prospects of a pact being sealed
at the meeting as bleak.
In one leaked e-mail, the research center's director, Phil Jones, writes to
colleagues about graphs showing climate statistics over the last millennium.
He alludes to a technique used by a fellow scientist to "hide the decline"
in recent global temperatures. Some evidence appears to show a halt in a
rise of global temperatures from about 1960, but is contradicted by other
evidence which appears to show a rise in temperatures is continuing.
Jones wrote that, in compiling new data, he had "just completed Mike's
Nature trick of adding in the real temps to each series for the last 20
years (i.e., from 1981 onwards) and from 1961 for Keith's to hide the
decline," according to a leaked e-mail, which the author confirmed was
genuine.
One of the colleague referred to by Jones < Michael Mann, a professor of
meteorology at Pennsylvania State University < did not immediately respond
to requests for comment via telephone and e-mail.
The use of the word "trick" by Jones has been seized on by skeptics < who
say his e-mail offers proof of collusion between scientists to distort
evidence to support their assertion that human activity is influencing
climate change.
"Words fail me," Stephen McIntyre < a blogger whose climateaudit.org Web
site challenges popular thinking on climate change < wrote on the site
following the leak of the messages.
However, Jones denied manipulating evidence and insisted his comment had
been taken out of context. "The word 'trick' was used here colloquially, as
in a clever thing to do. It is ludicrous to suggest that it refers to
anything untoward," he said in a statement Saturday.
Jones did not indicate who "Keith" was in his e-mail.
Two other American scientists named in leaked e-mails < Gavin Schmidt of
NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies in New York, and Kevin Trenberth,
of the U.S. National Center for Atmospheric Research, in Colorado < did not
immediately return requests for comment.
The University of East Anglica said that information published on the
Internet had been selected deliberately to undermine "the strong consensus
that human activity is affecting the world's climate in ways that are
potentially dangerous."
"The selective publication of some stolen e-mails and other papers taken out
of context is mischievous and cannot be considered a genuine attempt to
engage with this issue in a responsible way," the university said in a
statement.
"o.n.0.b." <b...@wa.com> wrote in message news:4b09c7a6$1...@dnews.tpgi.com.au...
21 Nov 2009
1.. Absolutely fake city. Fakest of all fakery.
2.. Partially fake. The files are too large to be wholly fake.
3.. Are you QUESTIONING THE SCIENCE?
4.. Real but no big deal. Warmenism is too big to fail.
5.. Totally real. This will hurt warmenism.
http://blogs.news.com.au/dailytelegraph/timblair/
Warmest Regards
B0n oz
"It is a remarkable fact that despite the worldwide expenditure of perhaps
US$50 billion since 1990, and the efforts of tens of thousands of scientists
worldwide, no human climate signal has yet been detected that is distinct
from natural variation."
Bob Carter, Research Professor of Geology, James Cook University, Townsville