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:
Improve 646-205 exam score up to 100% using 642-813 dumps and 642-902 mock test.
From: Tim Osborn
To: Michael Mann , Phil Jones
Subject: Re: attacks against Keith
Date: Wed Sep 30 17:15:29 2009
Cc: Gavin Schmidt
At 16:06 30/09/2009, Michael Mann wrote:
And Osborn and Briffa ’06 is also immune to this issue, as it eliminated any combination
of up to 3 of the proxies and showed the result was essentially the same (fair to say
this Tim?).
Mike,
yes, you’re right: figs S4-S6 in our supplementary information do indeed show results
leaving out individual, groups of two, and groups of three proxies, respectively. It’s
attached.
I wouldn’t say we were immune to the issue — results are similar for these leave 1, 2 or 3
out cases, but they certainly are not as strong as the case with all 14 proxies. Certainly
in figure S6, there are some cases with 3 omitted (i.e. some sets of 11) where modern
results are comparable with intermittent periods between 800 and 1100.
Plus there is the additional uncertainty, discussed on the final page of the supplementary
information, associated with linking the proxy records to real temperatures [b](remember we
have no formal calibration, we’re just counting proxies — I’m still amazed that Science
agreed to publish something where the main analysis only involves counting from 1 to 14!
:-)).[/b]
But this is fine, since the IPCC AR4 and other assessments are not saying the evidence is
100% conclusive (or even 90% conclusive) but just “likely” that modern is warmer than MWP.
So, yes, it should be possible to find some subsets of data where MWP and Modern are
comparable and similarly for some seasons and regions. And as you’ve pointed out before,
if any season/region is comparable (or even has MWP>Modern) then it will probably be the
northern high latitudes in summer time (I think you published on this, suggesting that
combination of orbital forcing, land-use change and sulphate aerosols could cause this for
that season/region, is that right?).
So, this Yamal thing doesn’t damage Osborn & Briffa (2006), but important to note that O&B
(2006) and others support the “likely” statement rather than being conclusive.
Cheers
Tim
Bonnie, sorry to bite at you. I just think Tim Ball knows what he is talking about.
http://www.heritage.org
http://www.nationalcenter.org/Kyoto.html
http://www.aei.org/
http://www.cato.org/
anthony and mods.
What a great job you’ve done here with this topic, considering the volume of traffic. WELL DONE to all of you!!!
Just been over to RealClimate to see what they are doing.I get the impression that they are trying to keep a low profile calm things down. However, I did find this comment and thought the mod’s answer perhaps revealed more than intended??
>>>#
>>Again, I write to the moderator. What did I write that was so inflammatory that >>you would not post it? I have not attempted to stir anything up? I would like to >>know the truth. Thats all. The truth needs no moderation nor to be covered up. >>What is wrong with my saying that? Maybe you can post this and a response as I >>don’t see what could possibly be wrong with this post.
>>My only questions now is…
>>I hear a lot about the FOIA and data that was being withheld that is now lost or >>destroyed. Is there an explanation or a reference to that which would answer >>what I have been hearing on the other end?
>>[Response: No data has been lost or destroyed. – gavin]
>>Comment by Jay — 20 November 2009 @ur momisugly 1:54 PM
This can be found at http://www.realclimate.org/?comments_popup=1853
Comment No. 38
I would like Steve McIntire’s take on that
john
That’s okay. I’m familiar with the site and it publishes a lot of birther nonsense. It’s okay. It doesn’t hurt to be published there, but many who see it will discount it the way they do what appears on World Net Daily.
I like this one, the money quote is at the end:
From: Phil Jones
To: mann@xxxxxxxxx.xxx
Subject: Fwd: CCNet: PRESSURE GROWING ON CONTROVERSIAL RESEARCHER TO DISCLOSE SECRET DATA
Date: Mon Feb 21 16:28:32 2005
Cc: “raymond s. bradley” , “Malcolm Hughes”
Mike, Ray and Malcolm,
The skeptics seem to be building up a head of steam here ! Maybe we can use
this to our advantage to get the series updated !
Odd idea to update the proxies with satellite estimates of the lower troposphere rather than surface data !. Odder still that they don’t realise that Moberg et al used the Jones and Moberg updated series !
Francis Zwiers is till onside. He said that PC1s produce hockey sticks. He stressed that the late 20th century is the warmest of the millennium, but Regaldo didn’t bother with that. Also ignored Francis’ comment about all the other series looking similarto MBH.
The IPCC comes in for a lot of stick.
Leave it to you to delete as appropriate !
Cheers
Phil
PS I’m getting hassled by a couple of people to release the CRU station temperature data.
Don’t any of you three tell anybody that the UK has a Freedom of Information Act !
tallbloke:
It’s the NYT, BBC, NPR, AP that run garbage. And you are the victim.
Mark C (12:54:08) – Given some of the exerpts that have been posted in the comments here , the WSJ article amounts to a fluff piece . I truly hope that someone will emerge from the MSM with the brass to expose this for what it is – fraud . Yes , I said the F word . Surely there must be at least one journalist who feels outraged at being duped .
Just posted this complaint to the BBC .
A major story has broken on the blogoshphere , concerning the manipulation of data and corrupt practices at the CRU , in which at least one member of BBC staff is named . Despite this , the BBC concentrate on the “illegality” of what has occurred , rather than the content of the emails and files.
This is a public interest issue, and something the BBC , as a public service broadcaster/provider should actively be pursuing . It would appear that as it runs contrary to BBC policy /bias , the story is being buried. Or , is it government pressure ?
For the record, I am not contradicting anyone, tallbloke, so I think there has been a miscommunication, probably on my part. I just meant that CFP is kind of a fringe pub.
I’m a conservative, so I know who the nuts are. ; )
Bonnie said,
“Some of the people no longer in government also can get heard, like Newt Gingrich and Fred Thompson. Contact the Republican Party, too. ”
I’d leave Newt out of that. Ever since he shared that AGW couch ad with Nancy Pelosi he lost most of his credibility luster.
IMO
On this political front, however, the Republican sure come out better thanthe Democrats who have nearly uniformly and unnanimously been driving the AGW-reduce C
Good news on who knows:
http://beltwayblips.dailyradar.com/story/hacked-sensitive-documents-lifted-from-hadley-climate/
planetgore@nationalreview.com
I’ll be quiet now. ; )
Russ Steele at NC Watch just posted a reference to an article:
http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2009/11/024995.php
Western governments have committed themselves to raise huge amounts of tax revenue and use the proceeds for worldwide social engineering. If AGW is exposed as a scam, how are Western politicians to raise the revenue? How can they set about the noble task they have set for themselves and all of us, if we sabotage their efforts? How are they feed the huge appetite of international organistations such as the EU and the UN ?
How?
Sent to Richard Blacks email addy :
Richard,
You cannot hide forever ! The piece that Harrabin has put out is frankly embarrasing to the BBC . Auntie should be reporting the meat of the story , not the “illegallity” issue , in my opinion it has not been ” hacked” but comes from an insider .
Regardless of how these details were obtained , they are an important issue , of a similar scale to Watergate , or the Blue dress . are you a journalist or a mouthpiece ?
TB, your original response to Ms G was correct. No need to backtrack.
Gene Nemetz (00:40:23) :
geo (09:32:32) :
Ah, so Michael Mann is now having fantasies of sending Anthony, Steve, and others to jail for allowing these stolen emails to appear on their blogs.
I seem to get that impression too.
As people are also no doubt aware the breaking into of computers and releasing private information is illegal, and regardless of how they were obtained, posting private correspondence without permission is unethical…cherry-picked out-of-context phrases from stolen personal emails…
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2009/11/the-cru-hack/
Gene, Geo,
I think it was an inside job.
Someone within their organization has put the files on the web.
http://camirror.wordpress.com/
Paul Coppin,
Are you the owner of this blog, and why are you revealing my last name online here without my permission?
And, Paul Coppin,
I was commenting only on the publication.
But I object to your publishing my last name without my permission.
Moderators: Please take note, if Mr. Coppin is not the owner of the blog. It seems quite ironic that someone trying to help the cause is made a victim of someone who doesn’t understand what transpired here in the messages.
Look, if you don’t want me to be here, I’ll go. Just say so.
[Reply: This is not Mr. Coppin’s site. If you wish to remain anonymous, you should remove your site link from your name. You can do it on your WordPress account. ~dbs, mod.]
my ‘quote of the week’:
Smokey (21:11:33) :
All your email are belong to us
I am seriously thinking about t-shirts in fact……
Bonnie said,
“Some of the people no longer in government also can get heard, like Newt Gingrich and Fred Thompson. Contact the Republican Party, too. ”
I’d leave Newt out of that. Ever since he shared that AGW couch ad with Nancy Pelosi he lost most of his credibility luster.
IMO
On this political front, however, the Republican sure come out better than the Democrats as this blows up.
Democrats, who have been essentially unanimous in driving the AGW-reduce CO2 emissions/cap & trade/carbon tax movement
should experience some signifcant consequences. One would think.
Here in Oregon literally every sinlge public agency, official, newspaper in sight have been seeing the effects of AGW everywhere they look.
Sorry, but it’s been a astounding demonstration of some group disorder. All the liberal blogs, government and media have been pumping out everything imaginable pitch while demanding wild policies to save the earth and position Oregon out in front of the AGW/green movement.
It’s so dominating that I suspect the complete collapse of the AGW hysteria will not be sufficient to alter much of this agenda.
Making Oregon likely to be taking the long haul coming out of this lunacy.
Though conservation and environmental protection remain essential, Oregon, unfortunately has been infected by a nonsensicle and extreme group think which controls everything.
They have traveled so far down their “advocacy” that they can’t turn away from any of it for some fear of being embarassed???
It’s bizarre. They just keep lecturing, parotting and demanding.
Paul Coppin,
Well, never mind. I see you must have found my name on my website. Still, if I wanted to use my name on the blog itself, I would have done so, and what you have done is rude, if not unethical. You should have respected my obvious desire to be known by my first name only, except if someone were to go to my profile page. Rude behavior. Not good.
Stealing evidence that results in the revelation of a tremendous fraud (if that’s what we’re dealing with here) will not be prosecuted, and if civilly pursued, will result in zero damages and a lot of laughing.
Thank you, Paul. Sorry to bite at you. I guess biting is becoming too popular.
[I deleted your last name. ~dbs, mod.]