UPDATE: Response from CRU in interview with another website, see end of this post.
The details on this are still sketchy, we’ll probably never know what went on. But it appears that University of East Anglia Climate Research Unit has been hacked and many many files have been released by the hacker or person unknown.
UPDATED: Original image was for Met Office – corrected This image source: www.cru.uea.ac.uk
I’m currently traveling and writing this from an airport, but here is what I know so far:
An unknown person put postings on some climate skeptic websites that advertised an FTP file on a Russian FTP server, here is the message that was placed on the Air Vent today:
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
The file was large, about 61 megabytes, containing hundreds of files.
It contained data, code, and emails from Phil Jones at CRU to and from many people.
I’ve seen the file, it appears to be genuine and from CRU. Others who have seen it concur- it appears genuine. There are so many files it appears unlikely that it is a hoax. The effort would be too great.
Here is some of the emails just posted at Climate Audit on this thread:
http://www.climateaudit.org/?p=7801#comments
I’ve redacted email addresses and direct phone numbers for the moment. The emails all have US public universities in the email addresses, making them public/FOIA actionable I believe.
From: Phil Jones
To: mann@vxxxxx.xxx
Subject: Fwd: John L. Daly dead
Date: Thu Jan 29 14:17:01 2004
From: Timo H‰meranta
To:
Subject: John L. Daly dead
Date: Thu, 29 Jan 2004 12:04:28 +0200
X-Mailer: Microsoft Outlook, Build 10.0.4510
Importance: Normal
Mike,
In an odd way this is cheering news ! One other thing about the CC paper – just found
another email – is that McKittrick says it is standard practice in Econometrics journals
to give all the data and codes !! According to legal advice IPR overrides this.
Cheers
Phil
“It is with deep sadness that the Daly Family have to announce the sudden death of John
Daly.Condolences may be sent to John’s email account (daly@john-daly.com)
“
Reported with great sadness
Timo H‰meranta
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Timo H‰meranta, LL.M.
Moderator, Climatesceptics
Martinlaaksontie 42 B 9
01620 Vantaa
Finland, Member State of the European Union
Moderator: timohame@yxxxxx.xxx
Private: timo.hameranta@xxxxx.xx
Home page: [1]personal.inet.fi/koti/hameranta/climate.htm
Moderator of the discussion group “Sceptical Climate Science”
[2]groups.yahoo.com/group/climatesceptics
“To dwell only on horror scenarios of the future
shows only a lack of imagination”. (Kari Enqvist)
“If the facts change, I’ll change my opinion.
What do you do, Sir” (John Maynard Keynes)
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Prof. Phil Jones
Climatic Research Unit Telephone +44 (0)xxxxxx
School of Environmental Sciences Fax +44 (0) xxxxxx
University of East Anglia
Norwich Email p.jones@xxx.xx.xx
NR4 7TJ
UK
—————————————————————————-
References
1. http://personal.inet.fi/koti/hameranta/climate.htm
2. http://groups.yahoo.com/group/climatesceptics
From: Phil Jones
To: ray bradley ,mann@xxxxx.xxx, mhughes@xxxx.xxx
Subject: Diagram for WMO Statement
Date: Tue, 16 Nov 1999 13:31:15 +0000
Cc: k.briffa@xxx.xx.xx,t.osborn@xxxx.xxx
Dear Ray, Mike and Malcolm,
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 from
1961 for Keith’s to hide the decline. Mike’s series got the annual
land and marine values while the other two got April-Sept for NH land
N of 20N. The latter two are real for 1999, while the estimate for 1999
for NH combined is +0.44C wrt 61-90. The Global estimate for 1999 with
data through Oct is +0.35C cf. 0.57 for 1998.
Thanks for the comments, Ray.
Cheers
Phil
Prof. Phil Jones
Climatic Research Unit Telephone +44 (0) xxxxx
School of Environmental Sciences Fax +44 (0) xxxx
University of East Anglia
Norwich Email p.jones@xxxx.xxx
NR4 7TJ
UK
—————————————————————————-
From: Jonathan Overpeck
To: “Michael E. Mann”
Subject: letter to Senate
Date: Tue, 22 Jul 2003 16:49:31 -0700
Cc: Caspar M Ammann , Raymond Bradley , Keith Briffa , Tom Crowley , Malcolm Hughes , Phil Jones , mann@xxxxx.xxx, jto@xxxxx.xx.xxx, omichael@xxxxx.xxx, Tim Osborn , Kevin Trenberth , Tom Wigley
Hi all – I’m not too comfortable with this, and would rather not sign – at least not
without some real time to think it through and debate the issue. It is unprecedented and
political, and that worries me.
My vote would be that we don’t do this without a careful discussion first.
I think it would be more appropriate for the AGU or some other scientific org to do this –
e.g., in reaffirmation of the AGU statement (or whatever it’s called) on global climate
change.
Think about the next step – someone sends another letter to the Senators, then we respond,
then…
I’m not sure we want to go down this path. It would be much better for the AGU etc to do
it.
What are the precedents and outcomes of similar actions? I can imagine a special-interest
org or group doing this like all sorts of other political actions, but is it something for
scientists to do as individuals?
Just seems strange, and for that reason I’d advise against doing anything with out real
thought, and certainly a strong majority of co-authors in support.
Cheers, Peck
Dear fellow Eos co-authors,
Given the continued assault on the science of climate change by some on Capitol Hill,
Michael and I thought it would be worthwhile to send this letter to various members of
the U.S. Senate, accompanied by a copy of our Eos article.
Can we ask you to consider signing on with Michael and me (providing your preferred
title and affiliation). We would like to get this out ASAP.
Thanks in advance,
Michael M and Michael O
______________________________________________________________
Professor Michael E. Mann
Department of Environmental Sciences, Clark Hall
University of Virginia
Charlottesville, VA 22903
_______________________________________________________________________
e-mail: mann@xxxxxx.xxx Phone: (434) 924-7770 FAX: (434) xxx-xxxxx
http://www.evsc.virginia.edu/faculty/people/mann.shtml
Attachment converted: Macintosh HD:EOS.senate letter-final.doc (WDBN/MSWD) (00055FCF)
–
Jonathan T. Overpeck
Director, Institute for the Study of Planet Earth
Professor, Department of Geosciences
Mail and Fedex Address:
Institute for the Study of Planet Earth
715 N. Park Ave. 2nd Floor
University of Arizona
Tucson, AZ 85721
direct tel: +xxxx
fax: +1 520 792-8795
http://www.geo.arizona.edu/Faculty_Pages/Overpeck.J.html http://www.ispe.arizona.edu/
It appears that the proverbial Climate Science Cat is out of the bag.
Developing story – more later
UPDATE1: Steve McIntyre posted this on Climate Audit, I used a screen cap rtaher than direct link becuase CA is overloaded and slow at the moment.
UPDATE2: Response from CRU h/t to WUWT reader “Nev”
http://briefingroom.typepad.com/the_briefing_room/2009/11/hadleycru-says-leaked-data-is-real.html
The director of Britain’s leading Climate Research Unit, Phil Jones, has told Investigate magazine’s TGIF Edition tonight that his organization has been hacked, and the data flying all over the internet appears to be genuine.
In an exclusive interview, Jones told TGIF, “It was a hacker. We were aware of this about three or four days ago that someone had hacked into our system and taken and copied loads of data files and emails.”
“Have you alerted police”
“Not yet. We were not aware of what had been taken.”
Jones says he was first tipped off to the security breach by colleagues at the website RealClimate.
“Real Climate were given information, but took it down off their site and told me they would send it across to me. They didn’t do that. I only found out it had been released five minutes ago.”
TGIF asked Jones about the controversial email discussing “hiding the decline”, and Jones explained what he was trying to say….
UPDATE3: McIntyre has posted an article by Jean S at climateaudit.org which is terribly overloaded. We have mirrored it.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/11/20/mikes-nature-trick/
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Does the material include the raw temperature data that Stephen McIntyre has been chasing ?
1067542015.txt
Are they talking about what I think they are talking about?
Guys,
So the verification RE for the “censored” NH mean reconstruction? -6.64
The verification RE for the original MBH98 NH mean reconstruction: 0.42
I think the case is really strong now!
What if were to eliminate the discussion of all the other technical details (and just
say they exist), and state more nicely that these series were effectively censored by
their substitutions, and that by removing those series which they censored, I get a
similar result, with a dismal RE.
And most people would keep the RE of 0.42 over the RE of -6, right? So this would make
that point. I think we also need to say something about the process, etc. (the intro was
based on something that Malcolm/Ray had originally crafted).
Thoughts, comments? Thanks,
mike
I’m thinking of a note saying basically this, and attaching this figure.
Could everybody sign on to something like this?
Thanks for all your help,
mike
Has anyone considered the potential financial fallout from this if it turns out to be legit? A lot of major corporations have hung their hat on AGW.
adam (19:06:42) :
ChrisinMB (19:13:21) :
Doesn’t look too dissimilar to OK English-style English to me. I doubt that a Russian would use the word “Hereby” and the phrase “kept under wraps” is an English idiom. So I guess I disagree with your first point but, having read many of the e-mails, etc., there’s no way the bulk of this could be faked. NO snipping way.
I’m going to go easy on the moles in my yard now, for the rest of the year at least.
I’m having trouble on the download on a stupid Vista System and an XP 64.
Vista goes to 59 MB and says, “Out of space” Nonsense, there’s 70 GB left on
the C drive.
My XP 64 doesn’t direct to real websites. “Error Opening” the website.
Anyone got another FTP?
Reply: File is gone/taken down now. I’m sure there will be other places to get it soon. ~ ctm
Any emails to or from Al Gore?
Dr. Burns: McIntyre won’t use any data obtained in this way. Not his MO.
Indiana Bones (19:17:49) :
“There are loads of other planets to try Global Socialism on. Meanwhile… we’ll always have Cuba.”
Bones, you clearly didn’t see the cover of Algores new book, Cuba is underwater!
For all those concerned about viruses and trojans hidden within the files – download a copy of VirtualBox, and an Ubuntu Live cd, and review the files within a virtual machine – that way, any malicious trojans/viruses hiding inside the files – even if they did run on Linux – would only be “damaging” whatever’s running inside the virtual machine.
Regards.
(now back to restoring my website ASAP – I lost all my data in a massive server crash which totalled my sites and my wife’s, and took my email server down with it – ugh)
I’m worried that Climate Audit website is getting overloaded with viewers and is struggling….do you think it might be worth asking people to leave it be unless analysing the data?
Were these guys getting paid by someone while they altered records? Is this the work they were getting paid for, or did they misuse funds?
I haven’t read all comments, but it seems the warmers are not showing up in the thread tonight…. odd…. or not.
tucker (17:36:41) :
“I wonder if this is the imfamous Tom P of CA fame?? Hmm”
There’s two Toms in the archive, one is Tom Peterson, who I think is Tom P.
Thomas C Peterson of NCDC perhaps? He appears to be the Team’s defensive debunker. Here’s another example of his work: http://icecap.us/images/uploads/As_Earth_Cools.pdf
Ric Werme (18:23:43) :
“…It is a mixed blessing. I encouraged Tom Peterson to do the
analysis with the limited number of USHCN stations…”
LOL! The infamous “Tom P” got mentioned.
the ftp site does not have the file anymore. anyone have a link. i want to get this on a torrent asap
adam (19:06:42) : ChrisinMB (19:13:21) :
Re syntax and first language. I wouldn’t be so sure. I’ve seen similar usage by native English speakers. The grammar is slightly archaic, but still well within parameters for a native speaker.
“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”
It’s very English, English if you catch my drift.
philincalifornia: What we need is Russian language teacher. A less skilled Russian writer of English might construct a sentence in Russian, and simply swap out Russian words for English ones. So, the syntax and grammer would be of a Russian construction. We would also expect to see the use of words which a native English speaker might find awkward (remember how your grade school English teacher might write “awk” in red on your essay).
The “in the current situation” clause just dosen’t fit (not to mention the incorrect spelling “correspondance”). Now, of course, a native English speaker could construct a “foreign-sounding” English sentence…
Fellow WUWT readers, attorneys licensed in the USA cannot give legal advice on a forum such as this. We can, however, read the postings and the comments. I cannot speak to what attorneys from other nations can or cannot do.
All of this is extremely interesting!
Anyone know what time zone RC’s comments are on? The last ones on the most recent thread were prior to 6pm today, and there seemed to be posts every several minutes leading up to that point. So it seems unusual that the commenting would’ve suddenly stopped for hours if that were 6pm Eastern. The commenting was going on pretty steadling well beyond “6pm” last night (longest break by far was 2am to 5:36am).
Is that a sign that they started sh!tting bricks and are letting everything sit in the moderation queue whilst they scramble to put out fires?
This sounds like a “get rid of the MWP,” I hope it’s just a what if
speculation/exploration that might lead to research directions.
tux:mail> cat 1254108338.txt
From: Tom Wigley
To: Phil Jones
Subject: 1940s
Date: Sun, 27 Sep 2009 23:25:38 -0600
Cc: Ben Santer
Phil,
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.
Tom.
***************************
***************************
“Police ID fear after Met website is hacked”Cops fear hackers may have stolen the personal details of hundreds of officers.”
At first Scotland Yard thought it was just a prank when a picture of Brobee, from children’s TV show Yo Gabba Gabb, was posted by hackers on the recruitment website http://www.metcareers.com last month.
But a security review found the site was linked to two Met databases containing job applications and personal details.
A source said: “This information would be very useful for identity fraudsters and almost priceless to criminals.”
http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/top-stories/2008/03/24/police-id-fear-after-met-website-is-hacked-115875-20361045/
“I’m really sorry that you have to go through all this stuff, Phil. Next
time I see Pat Michaels at a scientific meeting, I’ll be tempted to beat
the crap out of him. Very tempted.” – Ben Santer
FWIW: Don’t know if this is related — not a scientist or aware of inside info.
http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/0,1518,662092,00.html
FOIA over at Climate Skpetic has had his(or her) site pulled down.
Clearly our AGW friends are not going to change form and actually cooperate with open disclosure.
Are there any other sites of this interesting archive?
Bill Marsh (18:53:03) :
Where do you see this statement?
Bill, Steven was the first to break this story on CA. Below is his comment:
101 steven mosher:
November 19th, 2009 at 1:58 pm
Found this on the airVent.
Posted on Lucia. This is huge.
Lucia,
Found this on JeffIds site.
http://noconsensus.wordpress.c…..en-letter/
It contains over 1000 mails. IF TRUE …
1 mail from you and the correspondence that follows.
And, you get to see somebody with the name of phil jones say that he would rather destroy the CRU data than release it to McIntyre.
And lots lots more. including how to obstruct or evade FOIA requests. and guess who funded the collection of cores at Yamal.. and transferred money into a personal account in Russia
And you get to see what they really say behind the curtain..
you get to see how they “shape” the news, how they struggled between telling the truth and making policy makers happy.
you get to see what they say about Idso and pat micheals, you
get to read how they want to take us out into a dark alley, it’s stunning all very stunning. You get to watch somebody named phil jones say that John daly’s death is good news.. or words to that effect.
I don’t know that its real..
But the CRU code looks real