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 like the addressee list. It’s a “Who’s Who” of the global warming scam. Can we spell conspiracy?
Why was this story on the main page of foxnews.com now there is no story at all?
First off to all the, wait it could be fake retards. !BS! Just like their research. They were told to “make the data fit and we will keep you in the money” (FACT). There is currently a huge push to manipulate economies worldwide based solely on the ‘fear’ of global warming. That said, if you can manufacture the ‘evidence’ (cough), you can also make billions with that simple lie. Real scientists do not worry about swaying anything. They present the facts to the best of their ability and THAT”S ALL.
[snip]
Rhetoric mode ON
These e-mails show we are dealing with a cabal of conspiring scientists with an agenda.
Rhetoric mode OFF.
Robert E. Phelan (14:53:57) :
I got in the first comment on the thread!
–Kilroy [Roger Knights]
“OK, your were first on this thread, but it was Steve Mosher who found the original on Jeff Id’s site and publicized it while Jeff was out trying to murder Bambi in the Upper peninsula. Steve deserves a lot of credit.”
Good heavens, I wasn’t trying to take credit from people like him! I was just joshing with the commenter who said he was making a post here in order to be able to show his grandkids, “I was there.” I.e., I was just saying that my “Kilroy was here” graffito was more prominent than his–which of course doesn’t amount to a hill of beans.
paul t (15:15:26) :
Long story short, you are all happy to jump on a bandwagon when a sentence is taken out of context.
I’ll see your bandwagon, and raise you one manipulative, disinformation
bus tour.
http://www.readthehook.com/images/issues/2007/0617/news-globalbus.jpg
How deep goes the the AGW Conspiracy?
The “hacked” scientists are directly linked to Real Climate.org, so how do the lines go from there… to AL Gore, President Obama to……Government leaders world wide, UN IPCC, Club of Rome. The entire conspiracy is aimed at World Government, including the new President of the EU. Hear his statement about World Government here: http://blogs.news.com.au/heraldsun/andrewbolt/index.php/heraldsun/comment/eu_president_wants_copenhagen_to_give_us_global_management#63675
Thanks to the excellent link provided by Indiana Bones (11:30:21), we connect some of the dots :
http://www.populartechnology.net/2009/07/truth-about-realclimateorg.html
RealClimate.org whois record: http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_BsNAUboeko4/SlKvYU2BmjI/AAAAAAAAAPM/gN4PfaVZriQ/s1600-h/RealClimateWhoIS.gif
Registrant Organization – Environmental Media Services
Environmental Media Services (EMS) (Discover the Networks)
EMS’s founder and President was Arlie Schardt, who also served as the National Press Secretary for Al Gore’s 1988 presidential campaign, and as Gore’s Communications Director during his 2000 bid for the White House. […]
EMS officially served as the “scientific” branch of the leftist public-relations firm Fenton Communications; both companies shared the same Washington, D.C. address and office space. For more than a decade, David Fenton (CEO of Fenton Communications) used EMS to run negative media campaigns against a wide variety of targets, including biogenetic foods, America’s dairy industry, and President George W. Bush. […]
EMS also produced many stories condemning the Bush administration’s environmental policies. Among these titles were: “Bush Administration Obscures Truth About Toxic Cleanups”; “President Bush Signs Fatally Flawed Wildfire Bill”; “Earth Day Event To Highlight Bush Administration Assault On Environment, Public Health”; “Bush Administration Report Card: ‘F’ on Protecting Children”; and “National Environmental Groups Launch Campaign to Defeat President Bush.” EMS claimed that the data contained in its press releases constituted “the latest and most credible information” provided by “top scientists, physicians, and other experts.” These “experts” included officials of Greenpeace, the Natural Resources Defense Council, the World Wildlife Fund, and the Union of Concerned Scientists.
Environmental Media Services (EMS) (Activist Cash)
EMS is the communications arm of leftist public relations firm Fenton Communications. Based in Washington, in the same office suite as Fenton, EMS claims to be “providing journalists with the most current information on environmental issues.” A more accurate assessment might be that it spoon-feeds the news media sensationalized stories, based on questionable science, and featuring activist “experts,” all designed to promote and enrich David Fenton’s paying clients, and build credibility for the nonprofit ones. It’s a clever racket, and EMS & Fenton have been running it since 1994. […]
It’s called “black marketing,” and Environmental Media Services has become the principal reason Fenton Communications is so good at it. EMS lends an air of legitimacy to what might otherwise be dismissed (and rightly so) as fear-mongering from the lunatic fringe. In addition to pre-packaged “story ideas” for the mass media, EMS provides commentaries, briefing papers, and even a stable of experts, all carefully calculated to win points for paying clients. These “experts,” though, are also part of the ruse. Over 70% of them earn their paychecks from current or past Fenton clients, all of which have a financial stake in seeing to it that the scare tactics prevail. It’s a clever deception perpetrated on journalists who generally don’t consider do-gooder environmentalists to be capable of such blatant and duplicitous “spin.”
Fenton Communications (Discover the Networks)
Foremost public relations firm of the political left. Past clients have included Marxist dictatorships in Central America. Represents environmentalist groups, pro-Democratic political action committees, labor unions, and the anti-war movement.
Founded in 1982 by activist and public relations veteran David Fenton, Fenton Communications (FC) is the leading advertising and public relations firm for advocacy groups on the political left, with locations in Washington DC, New York, and San Francisco.
FC serves as an “umbrella” for “three independent nonprofit organizations” which it co-founded. These include: Environmental Media Services, which manages publicity efforts for environmental groups; New Economy Communications, a social justice group; and the Death Penalty Information Center, an anti-death penalty lobby.
FC expressly refuses to represent “clients and projects that we don’t believe in ourselves.” Among the clients and projects that FC has worked for are Marxist-Leninist regimes in Central America and Africa, environmental groups, labor unions, and anti-war organizations. In addition, FC has offered its services to pro-Democrat political action committees and law firms, as well as to political campaigns against the death penalty and gun-ownership rights. […]
Equally noteworthy has been FC’s business partnership with environmental groups. In 1988 and 1989, FC helped one such organization, the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), promote misleading claims about the dangers of Alar, a pesticide then in use by the apple industry. On the basis of NRDC’s study of Alar, itself based on exaggerated probabilities rather than concrete empirical data, FC launched a media campaign that stoked consumers’ fears and captured the interest of television news programs, daily newspapers and daytime talk shows, fueling a backlash against apple growers. By some estimates, the apple industry suffered $200 million in lost revenue as a result of the FC campaign.
By contrast, FC and its client prospered. David Fenton subsequently boasted that his firm had “designed” the media campaign “so that revenue would flow back to NRDC from the public,” noting that FC had gained “$700,000 in net revenues from it.” Fenton Communications today cites the Alar campaign as a significant contribution to the “national debate” on pesticides. […]
Joining forces with the Environmental Working Group, FC has also engineered media campaigns exaggerating the dangers posed by pesticides in tap water and baby food.
In 2003 FC created an ad campaign targeting the automotive industry for the Evangelical Environmental Network. The controversial ads alleged that consumers who bought sport utility vehicles were, in effect, supporting terrorism by using large amounts of fuel imported from the Middle East. […]
Arlie Schardt, a senior consultant at Fenton Communications and Chairman of Environmental Media Services, served as Al Gore’s national press secretary during his first presidential campaign.
David Fenton (ActivistCash)
David Fenton has turned leftist activism into big business with his firm Fenton Communications, the single most easily identifiable nexus of anti-consumer activism in Washington, DC. Fenton and his staff masterminded the mad cow scare campaign, the organic marketing craze, the phony Alar-on-apples food scare, and more. He’s very good at what he does, and groups like the Center for Food Safety, Greenpeace, the Natural Resources Defense Council, the Organic Consumers Association, and SeaWeb are all happy to pony up big bucks to give their radical messages the Fenton touch.
Fenton started out in the music biz, directing public relations for Rolling Stone. He entered the activist fray in the anti-nuclear movement of the late 1970s, co-producing the 1979 “No Nukes” concerts headlined by Bruce Springsteen and Bonnie Raitt. From there, he went on to found his own activism-centered PR empire, Fenton Communications, in 1982. Within that umbrella are “three independent nonprofit organizations” all co-founded by Fenton: the Death Penalty Information Center, New Economy Communications (an anti-globalism outfit), and Environmental Media Services.
Fenton Communications Launches Green-Tech Division (Reuters)
Fenton Communications has been deeply involved in environmental issues since its founding in 1982. The firm publicized the first reports of the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, helped environmental NGOs at the Kyoto Global Warming Summit, and worked with Vice-President Al Gore to publicize the issues.
Climate Science: Is it currently designed to answer questions? (PDF) (Richard S. Lindzen, Ph.D. Professor of Atmospheric Science, MIT)
“Environmental Media Services (a project of Fenton Communications, a large public relations firm serving left wing and environmental causes; they are responsible for the alar scare as well as Cindy Sheehan’s anti-war campaign.) created a website, realclimate.org, as an ‘authoritative’ source for the ‘truth’ about climate. This time, real scientists who were also environmental activists, were recruited to organize this web site and ‘discredit’ any science or scientist that questioned catastrophic anthropogenic global warming. The web site serves primarily as a support group for believers in catastrophe, constantly reassuring them that there is no reason to reduce their worrying.” – Richard S. Lindzen, Ph.D. Professor of Atmospheric Science, MIT
This is for those who you who still doubt there is NO conspiracy.
Michael (15:48:43) :
Why was this story on the main page of foxnews.com now there is no story at all?
Big Brother?
Well, this is a milestone, is it not, Anthony? A “normal” post broke a thousand comments for the first time.
http://thepiratebay.org/torrent/5171206/Hadley_CRU_Files_(FOI2009.zip)
DOWNLOAD IT HERE
WOW! Over 600 posts since last night. This is certainly creating a bit of a stir.
Commenters above state that Tamino’s identity was revealed. Can someone provide a link?
I have a dream
That we consider that co2 is more we have better it is
That we use CFC again and have cheap non toxic and more efficient by 15% gas
That we stop “passive smoking” and go back to “it’s the dose that make the poison”
That “s”cience get is “S” back again
Lucien
Roger Knights (15:52:42) :
Roger, I apologize. I knew you were not trying to steal anyone’s thunder. Just that Steve Mosher did get this snow-ball going and it seemed like a good spot to put in a mention. And your Kilroy persona HAS been every where…. often all at the same time.
Even if we don’t say it every time, hats off to the moderators, outstanding job.
All of us have a high respect for your efforts in this is a history making event.
In reference to my last posting:
Just to be clear, the people involved in the AGW conspiracy are all enemies of our current States. They threaten our economies, our jobs, our assets and our future.
If these evil minded thugs are finished, our States don’t exist any more and all of us will have lost their freedom and our civil rights.
Now for those of you who have made moral remarks about the use of the hacked data!
Please bring matters into perspective!
They have moved it down to the Science Tech section — this happens frequently with tech related items.
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,576009,00.html
Thanks to CJ for the Bishop Hill link. It condenses the emails to a readable page:
http://bishophill.squarespace.com/blog/2009/11/20/climate-cuttings-33.html
I was absolutely floored that:
A) The New York Times wrote an article about this at all.
B) The NYT wrote an article about this within 24 hours.
C) The NYT wrote an even-handed article about this, seemingly lacking an agenda or viewpoint.
Hooray!!!
Craig
[REPLY – Perhaps Brother Revkin noticed the email in which his bona fides were brought into question? ~ Evan]
paul t (15:15:26) :
Long story short, you are all happy to jump on a bandwagon when a sentence is taken out of context.
No, but you, being on the AGW bandwagon seem only too happy to have bought their predictable, lame spin hook, line and sinker. Don’t look now, but your bandwagon’s wheels have fallen off and it’s heading for a cliff.
gul·li·ble – adjective easily deceived or cheated.
Also, gul·la·ble.
Oigin:
1815–25; gull 2 + -ible
Related forms:
gul·li·bil·i·ty, noun
gul·li·bly, adverb
Synonyms:
credulous, trusting, naive, innocent, simple, green.
Remind you of anyone? Try a mirror.
We are starting to see the 5 stages of grief. The AGW faithful have a very sick child and they are reacting exactly as would be expected. The first stage is *denial* and we have already seen several examples of that reaction. This should go on for a a little while before they move on to *anger*. It will be interesting to watch this play out.
Paul t,
Yeah, OK I can go with you once – twice – 10 times with your “Cherry Pick”,
But after that I begin to get a bit suspicious – the data points are piling up…
I think you need to push away from the computer and get some coffee.
Mike
This sounds all too plausable. We all know hackers are on the prowl dishing out their own kind of justice. We all saw Stephen Conroy’s site go down and the PMs on protest. I’m willing to bet there is at the very least a hand-full of “anonymous” hackers who have cottoned-on to the CRUs reckless indifference to the publics right to know. And if the files are that numerous, what would be the point in someone spending the enormous amounts of time and effort it would take, when they’d have to have an inside knowledge of the CRU and it’s members and staff as well as an in depth knowledge of the subject matter. It’s very unlikely.
>Roger Knights (14:23:32) :
>I bet this puppet show is in operation in other scientific disciplines.
I’d bet $20 that something similar is to be found regarding embryonic stem cell research. Too much money chasing too little science, as with AGW.
Outstanding job by the moderators. Hope they will be able to get some sleep in a couple of days. I’m off to drop a bit in Anthony’s tip jar.
We could argue the science with these people until hell freezes over. It won’t make a damned bit of difference. The bottom line is that this whole charade has been nothing more than political and social warfare. It is about time the rest of this world wakes up form their hypnotized ignorance of common sense and revolt against those who seek world domination….
http://www.mofizixgr4fix.com/?p=376