Odd things are going on at the Climate Research Unit at the University of East Anglia.
Widely available data, existing in the public view for years, is now disappearing from public view.
For example this link to Keith Briffa’s Yamal data:
http://www.cru.uea.ac.uk/cru/people/briffa/yamal2009/
Now redirects to a generic page of UEA. Try it yourself.
Now here is what that page says:
Climatic Research Unit
Due to the present high volume of visitors to this page, you will shortly be directed to the latest news about CRU on the main University of East Anglia website, or you can go there immediately by clicking on this link.
The cached page at Google is still available here, though none of the links to data or papers works there either.
I’ll point out that if indeed “traffic” is a concern, redirecting to another page on the UEA server system doesn’t do much for the load, it just moves it around. The data files are mostly text, and not that large, they don’t have that much more impact that some wab pages with graphics.
The news page that you get redirected to hasn’t much to say, and has not been updated since December 3rd.
And it’s not just subfolders with data, it is the entire Climate Research Unit website that is shielded from public view. Try the main link which has been functional for years:
In the last press release issued by UEA we read:
Professor Edward Acton, Vice-Chancellor said: “The reputation and integrity of UEA is of the upmost importance to us all.
So now apparently, in this newly pledged period of “openness and transparency”, with the promise of releasing new data access, such as the Met office has done here:
http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/climatechange/science/monitoring/subsets.html
The access to important CRU data is simply denied?
That’s a hell of a way to build public trust.
Sponsored IT training links:
If you are not satisfied with 156-215.70 exam preparation then join 310-202 online training and complete LX0-101 certification in days guaranteed.
Discover more from Watts Up With That?
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
If an institution is under investigation for fraud by one of its agents or employees, the first reasonable thing to do is quit repeating the isrepresentations of fact. In CRU’s case, that would mean refraining from publishing any of the suspect representation and re-evaluating almost everything to make sure it wasn’t cooked.
AJStrata may have been right – he suggests that Briffa himself is the source of the leak.
http://strata-sphere.com/blog/index.php/archives/11861
We already know it was no hacker. And the first attempt to download the data to RealClimate leads one to believe that the leaker thought he would find a sympathetic ear there, but was bitterly disapointed. Remember, these files had also been leaked to a BBC reporter previously, who also sat on them and did nothing. The move to put them on the russian FTP site was in fact the 3rd try at disseminating the information, and done only after other more AGW-sympathetic avenues were explored.
That all implies it was done by someone quite intimately connected with the ongoing situation. Why not Briffa?
And quite possibly the “team” already knows this, but doesn’t dare release the news since they’ve already settled on the “hacker” story. The files may be all getting locked down because they now know they have moles on the inside and have no idea how many there are.
This looks like an act of desperate damage control taken only because their ship is sinking and they know it.
Wow just tried it!
There is no way that they could be stupid enough to try and close the whole thing down, it’s gotta be something along the lines of investigators taking hardware of site to examine….
They’d be mad to do it themselves as it would just implicate them further….
Of coure it could just be that the data needs to be homogenised before being put in the public domain!
A lot of speculative “conspiracy” theories
I noticed the redirect sometime last evening, say about 0100 UTC.
I doubt it’s load related – web traffic to my site is way down, I think people are beginning to panic about Christmas. Like I should….
To be fair as anyone who works with websites and servers knows tere are dozens of reasonable explanations for why they have put a holding pattern in place. Probably best to just wait and see what they say over the next few days before jumping to conclusions which may make us look silly later on.
Perhaps the explanation is not so nefarious. I bet someone broke in and defaced the web page.
Climatologists crawling….out of sight…lol
@richard: Well said sir.
There are enough real goings on without coming up with David Ike style reptilian overlord style theories over everything. It then gets thrown back in your face when you try and say anything counter AGW … “oh so you believe its all a big conspiracy theory do you ?” … “err, no I believe its a big load of bollocks science though”.
Somewhere along the lines they are going to try and upgrade their servers to stem any possible leaks. Upgrades = outages.
Wait and see when the website comes back up properly.
My hypothesis : the whistle-blower was the IT manager, who has just been nicked.
Couple of observations – you would take the data down if it may be faulty or misleading. Also if the UK politicians don’t get their way in Copenhagen they will look for a scapegoat – UEA.
cheers David
You guys need to go study the case of Mr Clive Ponting OBE, a high flying MOD civil servant in the 1980s, who leaked documents which gave the lie to Government statements about the reasons for sinking an Argentine vessel at the start of the Falklands War in 1982. In effect, the truth was that the Argentine vessel was steaming in a direction away from a UK destroyer, who decided, despite that, to sink it. With the loss of several Argeninian lives.
There was an initial agreement to retract the official version due to clear anomalies being highlighted by the Hon. Tam Dalyell, a back bench MP of considerable experience, repute and integrity.
Then, somehow, somewhere, a decision to go for full Establishment cover-up was taken.
Mr Ponting leaked the documents to, horror of horrors, the House of Commons (the UK equivalent of the House of Representatives on Capitol Hill). Who to? Mr Dalyell, of course.
The result: his arrest and charge under Section II of the Official Secrets Act, one of the most disgraceful politically motivated trials of the entire 20th century.
The Govt ‘selected a hanging judge’ who directed the jury to convict in a way which brought British Justice into temporary terminal disrepute.
What rescued it was a jury who stuck 24 fingers up the judge’s fat ass and brought in a verdict of Not Guilty, unanimously, within 2 hours.
Not surprisingly, the Establishment have been seeking ways to limit the use of jury trials ever since.
They still exist, but it tells you a bit about how the UK Establishment works.
As previously stated, the rule of thumb should be:
“Never ascribe to malice that which is adequately explained by incompetence.”
— Napolean Bonaparte
I’m tending to agree with wobble. If, in the broader view, the university itself accepts (and it does seem to accept) that there ARE questions about the research and associated reports, hitherto promoted on the UEA’s website, then it would be the responsible thing to remove that content from the UEA’s site.
It’s all too easy for us to look at this from the cynical standpoint, suspecting a conspiracy of concealment wherever we can find it, but if we don’t colour these changes with our own suspicions it’s perfectly reasonable to consider that what is happening might actually just be a responsible action on the part of the university until such time as it can (or can’t) place confidence in research performed in its name.
Who knows, perhaps this is an indirect acknowledgement on the part of the university that WUWT, climateaudit.org et al have at last been heard.
@Larey: He put wot I sed in betta english than me and he wos french 🙂
Perhaps an attempt to “hide the decline” in reputation.
I would hold fire on this one for a while. Taking the data offline may be the first sign that the UEA is ready to acknowledge there are serious problems with it.
If the autorities suspect that your corner store is selling unfit produce, the first thing they do is close it to customers.
What about the damn Russians?
Random act of gratefulness: Thank you, Anthony for all you do.
Bob (06:37:37) “Big attack on Svensmark and the papers of Prof.Eigil Friis-Christensen in UKs ‘The Times’ newspaper today. Pages 1,8 and 9.”
This is why –
“An experiment that hints we are wrong on climate change
Nigel Calder, former editor of New Scientist, says the orthodoxy must be challenged”
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/article1363818.ece
That data was removed weeks ago plus links etc… Hope someone saved it? (the before pages) probably not…
Coco: You wrote, “He said he didn’t want to see the facts…”
It’s tough to argue with a person who’s not interested in fact.
Pretty sure Briffa might be the Mole. Has a good resaon and motive from emials…
“REPLY: This isn’t like a CSI crime scene where the evidence can be “contaminated” by the public. Unless their web security is completely bollocks, files on the server can’t be modified. There’s no threat to the investigation by leaving public files up. But from a public relations standpoint there’s everything to lose by shutting down access. – A”
—————————————
I agree, it does look dodgy. Although,
“As previously stated, the rule of thumb should be:
“Never ascribe to malice that which is adequately explained by incompetence.”
– Napolean Bonaparte”
So you never know. It looks like people panicking. Perhaps they really do have something to hide? Or is it those nasty [fictitious] Russian Hackers again? or will this be a real hack done via Russia to try to convince people that the original leak, really was those nasty [fictitious] Russian Hackers?
HELP! I am falling into their conspiracy theory world!!!