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/
Sponsored IT training links:
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I really feel for gavin at rc, I mean that, he’s been hoodwinked and that must be a bitter pill to swallow. He is, I believe, a genuine bloke and faithful unto death, until now.
They told you porkies mate, dunno the reasons why and it must hurt like hades but, as Winston S. Said – kbo!!
Sort it out, Gav
Ah, let the games begin.
And just before Copenhagen.
gtrip (21:11:14) :
“I read this site daily. The new (obscure) poster’s seem to be coming out of the woodwork on this subject! Quite interesting.”
No surpise though.
This number one science blog now get’s over 2 million visits per month now.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/11/01/new-wuwt-milestone-2-million-hits-this-month/
Geo (21:20:53) :
“If these emails are validated by a proper official investigation, then Phil Jones must go as director of CRU.”
This is real and every one of the other particpants must go as well. Some of them to jail.
Possibly a data plant? A Honey Pot of sorts in order to discredit and attack those with opposing views? If not for the original data then whatever resides there now?
Hmm…
Megaupload link:
http://www.megaupload.com/?d=003LKN94
It might be valuable to construct an email relationship web using the
To: and Cc: and From: and Bcc: fields of the emails.
It could be a directed cyclic graph with no information on the content
of the emails. The graph could be animated in time. Use something
like a 30 day running average to shown the number of bytes moving
between 2 nodes.
Analysis of and display of the flow of information might be enough to
convince a grand jury there is enough evidence of conspiracy to
start prosecution.
Overall this seems like a REALLY good data set to pass off to one of
the modern pattern finding tools used by law enforcement. These tools
_already have judicial notice_ and are designed to spot criminal
collusion or criminal conspiracies.
If this data set is real, some people either will, or should, be going
to jail. At this point, it looks too good to be true.
Who has already said this..again not reading all.
Is this a hoax done by alarmists … they will then claim was done by skeptics?
Oh the paranoia. ☺
I just uploaded the file here also:
http://www.filedropper.com/foi2009
And true to form, the once mighty BBC ignores the story of the millenium, sticks fingers in ears and squeaks La, La We can’t hear you!
RIP, BBC and farewell.
Robert Wood of Canada (16:52:44) :
Roger Knights (16:44:30) :
Stop wasting your time. “Trick” has a meaning, and it is widely understood. You cannot undermine that.
I think there’s a chance that it was used in an idiosyncratic sense by insiders, as a sort of local slang. This can easily be determined, as I suggested, by doing a computerized search for the word in the files that have been obtained. If this usage is not found elsewhere, then the darker interpretation will be unavoidable. Until then, which should only be a week or two at most, let’s not rush to judgment. We have nothing to gain by doing so, and lots to lose.
erik (17:04:42) :
Another thought – it is possible that the perpetrator (hacker or insider) has not yet released everything. There could be more files yet to come …
Order another carton of popcorn!
We can only hope that climate scientists who have scruples will now understand the disingenuousness of these “leading lights” of their science, realize how much damage is being done to the credibility of their science, and shun them from science forever. We can hope they will re-examine their own science and realize how easy it has been to say “this looks like AGW,” but now realize good science demands they be more modest in admitting that there could be many possible explanations for their findings, not just AGW.
We can only hope these charlatan scientists (who no doubt truly believe in AGW, but who have clearly been willing to shade truth to support that belief) are brought into bright public scrutiny so that the entire AGW thesis can be shown to be just what it is: an unproven hypothesis.
The general public must turn their backs on AGW science and force politicians to abdandon their dreams of world domination through carbon taxes. So many believe in the “green religion,” it will be difficult for many to believe that mankind’s economic activity and rapidly improving lifestyle is not “bad” for our earth. They want to believe that increasing wealth is bad. They want to believe that using nature (whether farming, fishing, logging, mining) is bad. They cannot differentiate which activities are truly destructive (over-fishing) and which are not (petroleum extraction and use).
Despite what these documents imply and the impact they might have, there is a long, long way to go before the worldview that so many people have, which allows politicans to believe they have the support to tax our very breath, is changed.
I would like to read more of their emails. The FTP link is overwhelmed or the box melted.
This has to be a hoax.
If the outed information is genuine, it means some people on the inside don’t want to get thrown under the bus as the sacrificial lamb when it all comes crashing down. We may be seeing a “Deep Throat” in action, or a smokescreen to divert attention while the real crooks wash thier hands.
There’s some humour in there too, see here. Shows what the warmists spend their time doing…
Have to say, this story has made my year.
Cheers,
Simon
ACM
“We have to get rid of the warm medieval period” SAGA from Deep Cool
Mon, 24 Mar 2008
Hi Phil, Kevin, Mike, Susan and Ben – I’m looking for some IPCC-related advice, so thanks in advance. The email below recently came in and I googled “We have to get rid of the warm medieval period” and “Overpeck” and indeed, there is a person David Deeming that attributes the quote to an email from me. He apparently did mention the quote (but I don’t think me) in a Senate hearing. His “news” (often with attribution to me) appears to be getting widespread coverage on the internet. It is upsetting.
I have no memory of emailing w/ him, nor any record of doing so (I need to do an exhaustive search I guess), nor any memory of him period. I assume it is possible that I emailed w/ him long ago, and that he’s taking the quote out of context, since know I would never have said what he’s saying I would have, at least in the context he is implying.
Any idea what my reaction should be? I usually ignore this kind of misinformation, but I can imagine that it could take on a life of it’s own and that I might want to deal with it now, rather than later. I could – as the person below suggests – make a quick statement on a web site that the attribution to me is false, but I suspect that this Deeming guy could then produce a fake email. I would then say it’s fake. Or just ignore? Or something else?
I googled Deeming, and from the first page of hits got the sense that he’s not your average university professor… to put it lightly.
Again, thanks for any advice – I’d really like this to not blow up into something that creates grief for me, the IPCC, or the community. It is bogus.
Best, Peck
(The email referred to: Dear Dr Overpeck,
I recall David Deeming giving evidence to a Senate hearing to the effect that he had received an email including a remark to the effect “We have to get rid of the warm medieval period”. I have now seen several comment web pages attribute the email to your. Some serious and well moderated pages like ukweatherworld would welcome a post from you if the attribution is untrue and would, I feel sure, remove it if you were to ask them to. I am sure that many other blogs would report your denial. Is there any reason you have not issued a denial?
David Holland
Jonathan T. Overpeck
Director, Institute for the Study of Planet Earth
Professor, Department of Geosciences
Professor, Department of Atmospheric Sciences)
At .. 26/03/2008, Kevin Trenberth wrote:
Hi Jon
There is a lot to be said for ignoring such a thing. But I understand the frustration. An alternative approach is to write a blog on this topic of the medieval warm period and post it at a neutral site and then refer enquiries to that link. You would have a choice of directly confronting the statements or making a more general statement, presumably that such a thing is real but was more regional and not as warm as most recent times.
This approach would not then acknowledge that particular person, except indirectly.
A possible neutral site might be blogs.nature.com/climatefeedback/ I posted a number of blogs there last year but not this year. I can send you the contact person if you are interested and you can make the case that they should post the blog.
Good luck
Kevin
From: Phil Jones Thu, 27 Mar 2008:
Peck et al,
I recall meeting David Deeming at a meeting years ago (~10).
He worked in boreholes then. I’ve seen his name on several of the skeptic websites.
Kevin’s idea is a possibility. I wouldn’t post on the website ‘ukweatherworld’.</B
The person who sent you this is likely far worse. This is David Holland. He is a UK citizen who send countless letters to his MP in the UK, writes in Energy & Environment about the biased IPCC and has also been hassling John Mitchell about his role as Review Editor for Ch 6. You might want to talk to John about how he’s responding. He has been making requests under our FOI about the letters Review Editors sent when signing off. I’m sure Susan is aware of this. He’s also made requests for similar letters re WG2 and maybe 3.
Keith has been in contact with John about this.
I’ve also seen the quote about getting rid of the MWP – it would seem to go back many years, maybe even to around the TAR. I’ve no idea where it came from. I didn’t say it!
I’ve written a piece for RMS [popular journal Weather on the MWP and LIA – from a UK perspective. It is due out in June. I can send if you want.
I’m away all next week – with Mike. PaleoENSO meeting in Tahiti – you can’t turn those sorts of meetings down!
Cheers
Phil
Hmmm… “I need to do an exhaustive search I guess” and “I assume it is possible that I emailed w/ him long ago, and that he’s taking the quote out of context,” how does that reconcile with “Peck’s” last sentence “It is bogus.”
Not very convincing Mr Peck!
8 hours and only one or two MSM stories?
One of the documents contained and mentioned above is “Rules of the Game.” This is a shorter version of this document:
http://www.defra.gov.uk/evidence/social/behaviour/documents/behaviours-1206-scoping.pdf
Of course, its presence in the .zip without context is meaningless, but the mealy-mouthed language contained within is still blood-boiling.
Tossing a T-Bone to the wolf pack might allow one to tip toe away during the confusion- – – a well connected political ploy?
OK. I agree we need to be very wary of this. But, for those who are doubting because it seems so bizarre that these smart people would write and have these e-mails saved, remember that most of the big corporations that have gotten into legal trouble, from Microsoft to Enron, have had a heck of a lot of evidence presented in court in the form of e-mail correspondence that, when read, you wouldn’t believe someone would not erase it, much less write it. They only purge the things when they think they might get caught, which no one ever does.
PS. Yes I wrote this at CA, so it’s a repeat.
Oh, Damn,
I think I may have hitched my ride to the wrong horse…
Politicians in various countries on the green machine…
Mike
If these emails are real it will be worse for people like Phil Jones than the iceberg was for the Titanic.
erik (17:04:42) :
Another thought – it is possible that the perpetrator (hacker or insider) has not yet released everything. There could be more files yet to come
Please note the original context: “a random selection“.
Honey pots and straw men aside, I think it is imperative that this situation is investigated by a third party. I have a resposibility as a principle of a public company to have a disinterested third party evaluation of my company’s assets in order to assure the public of the veracity of claimed assets. The system “eliminates” self interest and I believe that this situation demands the same approach. Steve Mosher, on Lucia’s blog, indicated thet he has conveyed this information to a disinterested party, a journalist, who is well equipped to investigate the W5 – who, what, when, why, where. It is imperative that this process is followed as it is the only way “skeptics” can create the necessary distance from the conclusions to maintain the integrity of those conclusions. Be it a hoax, perpetrated by parties unknown, or a verifiable “leak”, interested parties will not have the credibility to expose the truth, which is what we want.