Relevant

Some of us believe the allegations of "fraud," and outright deceit regarding the CRU (and other scientists) may be a little over the top. The focus on the emails themselves overlooks the value in the other documents, such as the comments embedded in computer code. Yet, at the same time, the release (liberation?) of the CRU documents do identify some practices that were questionable at best, at least running to the very edge of scientific misconduct. For example:

• Some climate researchers apparently did a very poor job of documentation. That has opened them up for criticism, and rightly so. In the field of medicine the standard is that if you didn't document it, you can't prove you did it. (Certainly there is room for the documentation to be fudged from the start, but it's clear that documentation practices at the CRU were lacking from about Day One.) One has to wonder if the funding entities really got what they paid for.
• It's clear that the IPCC coordinating lead authors, lead authors and reviewers often overlapped extensively with scientists employed at the CRU and their close associates. The IPCC has relied heavily on authors and their colleagues to place their own research into the most favorable light, and the review process also left much to be desired (when, for example, comments could be simply dismissed out of hand).
• It's apparent that the much vaunted "peer review" process, already questioned for the paleoclimatology community (that of Briffa, Mann, et al.) by the North (National Research Council) and Wegman panels (plus Wegman's testimony and Wegman's reply to questions), can be "gamed" to allow an author's associates to review papers written by the author, as well as reviewing papers critical of that given author. In addition, there is ample evidence that papers that pose problematic questions can be delayed (for many months), or dismissed out of hand without review. Further, journal editorial boards and editors are evidently susceptible to manipulation toward a variety of ends. The term "peer-review" does not appear to mean what has long been asserted. Well, at least in some circles...
• A major question that remains to be answered is how these CRU researchers can determine and ascertain with reasonable certainty how they did their own work 10, 15 or 20 years ago. Some aspects were published, but the much vaunted and prized Professional Journal publications are generally an abbreviated discussion. Articles published about the research associated with a Masters Thesis or Ph.D. Dissertation (documents that may reach hundreds of pages), may be boiled down to 10 or 12 pages in such journals. That's pretty condensed, so there are likely to be many details dropped.
• In their search for tenure, researchers are often pressured to publish of perish, and may begin to take shortcuts and otherwise slide into areas of misconduct. That should be a major concern for the public.
• The "leaked" UEA CRU data and emails opened a window into mindsets (the "bunker mentality" discussed previously).
• The documents also illustrate a failing in scientific research, that of an increasing need for transparency and an established means for independent validation of scientific work, especially with respect to major public policy determinations. There is a likely cost implication associated with trying to fix these problems of data access, validation, etc. But the much larger hurdle to vault will be the mindset of scientists and researchers who will say: "This is mine! These data can't be shared with others!" (We've already seen this problem in EPA decisions in which government funded computer code and research data have been blocked from true peer review (i.e., a proper independent review) for a variety of reasons.
• With the need for independent validation transparency, and data access comes a need for independent assessment of what are "major" legislative and regulatory actions. As things stand now, the agency or legislative body making the proposal gets to assess the action under consideration (such as EPA creating its own cost estimates on the compliance costs of a proposed regulation). Can they cook the numbers to make it slip under a threshold? Sure. Do they? Good question.

2 5 Feb 2010: I've finally finished reviewing a monster, a good one. It seems that a number of individuals have created a summary timeline -- including information gleaned from the "Climategate" document release (be it a real hack, an inadvertent posting to an unrestricted site, or a whistleblower's response to being fed up with what he or she was seeing at the UEA CRU) -- regarding the evolution of the IPCC, and the key dates and "contributions" to the Global Warming program.

We warn that some of the verbiage of the document may make allegations based on limited extracts, but keep in mind that the document is huge. The citations are provided so one can go to the real Climategate emails or other documents to read the point in greater context.

A large chart (which is available in multiple formats for those who want to print the piece and splice it together) has been created. The timeline goes back to the very beginnings and identifies many issues, only some of which are the result of a detailed reading of the Climategate emails, computer code and other documents now in the public domain. (A very small and unreadable version of the chart is shown below to give an idea of its size.) Many references are provided for further follow up. Clearly many hours have gone into its creation.

Also available is a 43 page booklet, available for free download in PDF format, entitled:  Climategate: Caught Green-Handed — Cold Facts about the Hot Topic of Global Warming Temperature Change after the Climategate Scandal.

Oh, haven't you downloaded your copy of the files yet? It's about 60 MB, so download only on a broadband connection. Download options include:

• From Filedropper.com or
• As a .zip file at Wikileaks or
• Just search via your favorite Internet Search Engine (such as Google) for download Climategate emails (that's how we generated to two above).

28 January 2010: The Wall Street Journal is reporting today that the University of East Anglia (UEA) and the Climatic Research Unit (CRU) failed to follow the UK's Freedom of Information law with regard to requests for data. CRU/UEA did not provide the data requested, per the WSJ, and that was illegal, as determined by the UK's Information Commissoner's Office (ICO). Unfortunately, the statute of limitations is a mere six (6) months, so as a result, there will be no action taken. In any case, action would be taken against the University, not against the individuals. Thus, the UK law would appear to be relatively toothless. The complaint was filed by David Holland, a retired engineer from Northampton. (The Holland complaints can be seen here and here.)

"An ICO spokesman told The Times: The legislation prevents us from taking any action but from looking at the [Climategate] emails it's clear to us a breach has occurred."

On a positive note, the ICO is reportedly gathering information so as to improve the law, including making the enforcement period longer. One of the issues the ICO has recognized is that one has to report the possible violation within six months, but the University's procedure can take much longer than that to resolve.

Now, will the ICO be able to make certain that the data previously requested are made available?

Read More:

Wall Street Journal, online (may require a subscription)

The UK Telegraph and The Times

New Scientist (includes the full ICO statement)

Science Insider (blog for Science Magazine; also includes full ICO statement)

7 December 2009: Initially only Fox News and The Wall Street Journal provided open and honest information to follow this scandal at the Climatic Research Unit at the University of East Anglia, in the UK. Others have finally begun to provide more in-depth and critical coverage. At issue are thousands of pages of documents that were made public by persons unknown. Included are:

• Emails (despite what some pundits say, they are public documents, sent via government and university computers) that discuss matters associated with the IPCC reports, and the scientists' own publications and research. Most such computer system administrators actually prohibit "personal use" of those email systems;
• Computer Code (and related documents); and
• Other Documents

CRU is a major research center for climate change (link is to a Congressional Research Service memo), and the repository of one of the few sets of real data on historic temperatures worldwide that serves as a linchpin or foundation for the Anthropogenic Global Warming theory. ("Real data" means stuff other than computer model estimates of what might happen in 100 years, if interpretations of those real data are correct.) The other sources of such data are likewise restricting public access and independent analyses...

There are now three main theories on how the documents were compiled and released:

Here are You Tube video links (the longest was about 6 minutes, the shortest about 2).

Updated 12/14/2009 to includes several additional links, the reference to the CRS acknowledgement of the CRU's role in climate science, plus notes on the CBS News coverage on the American Physical Society apparent conflicts of interest.