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Climategate / Climatic Research Unit Email Hacking Controversy
Event
Status: submission Year:
2009
Origin: Unknown
Added 4 years ago by
rikameme.
Updated about a year ago by
Z..
Overview
Climategate is an environmental-academic scandal over the issue of global climate change which arose after thousands of email correspondences and other documents pertaining to research of climate changes over the course of 13 years were stolen from the University of East Anglia’s Climatic Research Unit (CRU)'s servers by an unknown group of hackers in November 2009. Upon the online distribution of the private research documents, some climate-change skeptics interpreted the leaked emails as supporting evidence of alleged data manipulation by politically motivated scientists, as well as their assertion that global warming is a scientific conspiracy. However, numerous investigations into the scandal ultimately found these accusations to be unfounded and the CRU scientists were cleared of any wrongdoing.
Background
The Climatic Research Unit (CRU) is an academic research program of the University of East Anglia,
[1] a British public research university located in Norwich, Norfolk, United Kingdom. On November 17th, 2009, only a few weeks before the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen, Norway, a large volume of archived emails and other documents were stolen from a compromised server and published online, prompting a widespread debate in the news media over the validity of scientific research in the areas of global warming and climate changes.
Coinage
While the term “Climategate”, bearing similarity to numerous other scandals named with the
“-gate” suffix, was first conceived by a commenter named “Bulldust” responding to the subject’s article on popular skeptic blog
Watts Up With That[4], the phrase was popularized by and widely-accredited to James Delingpole, a blogger and writer known for anti-Environmentalist works such as Watermelons: How Environmentalists are Killing the Planet, Destroying the Economy and Stealing Your Children’s Future
[6] and The Little Green Book of Eco-Fascism
[7], the former named for a joke disparaging environmentalists as “green on the outside, red on the inside” – implying a connection between popular environmentalism and socialist ideology.
Notable Developments
E-mail Leaks
The emails, seemingly stolen over the course of several weeks, were taken likely until November 12th, 2009, as this is the most recent date at which the leaked emails had been sent. The data, 160 megabytes in size
[27], was uploaded onto a Russian server, and from there was linked to on a skeptical blog named
The Air Vent, using a computer located in Saudi Arabia
[23].
Concerns of Scientific Malfeasance
The emails, according to skeptics and those concerned about the scandal, revealed numerous potential problems in the scientific consensus on climate change. The first among those concerns, which received the most media coverage, was that CRU scientists manipulated data or the presentation of data to cloak scientific evidence contrary to the popular consensus that anthropogenic – or “man-made” climate change, was real. The following is an annotated list of quotes deemed most concerning by several media outlets:
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) and from 1961 for Keith’s to hide the decline.
The phrase “hide the decline” was taken by many skeptics to mean that CRU’s scientists obscured data to mask unfavorable temperature data, while “Mike’s Nature trick” was taken to mean that the scientists used an evidently popular means of deception to manipulate climate data. However, it was found upon investigation that these phrases had meanings different than was originally interpreted by the skeptics. Measurements of tree ring growth – taken from samples of trees at high latitudes – is considered a historically accurate means of estimating temperature averages dating back to 1880. However, tree rings measured from high-latitude locations since the 1960s reveal temperature estimations different than the actual temperature records then taken. Tree rings, thus, have useful but limited value when estimating historical temperatures. This phenomena has been discussed heavily within peer-reviewed scientific research
[8]. Mike’s Nature Trick, coined from a presentational technique previously used in the scientific journal
Nature, refers to the technique of plotting historical temperature estimations along with, once possible, real recorded temperatures. The trick refers not to an act of deceit, but a means to lend context to temperature reconstructions – normally regarded as a more honest means to present scientific data. The “decline” referred to declines in tree ring growth, not declines in temperature.
The fact is that we can’t account for the lack of warming at the moment and it is a travesty that we can’t.
Then-CRU scientist Kevin Trenberth wrote in an email what seemed, to readers, an admission of deceit in scientific reporting on climate warming. The context of the email, however, was largely missed. Greenhouse gasses in the atmosphere reflect heat radiating from the earth’s surface back onto the planet, effectively increasing the amount of energy entering the lower layers of the atmosphere and striking the surface of the planet. The amount of energy reflected, when the amounts of greenhouse gasses added to the atmosphere are known, is calculable
[10]. However, where much of the energy reflected back onto the earth’s surface has gone remains a scientific mystery, as measured increases in the energy content over land, in the polar ice caps and so on does not account for all of the added energy. Trenberth, in this email, laments the lack of scientific knowledge on where this energy is going, but suggests elsewhere that it is likely entering the deeper waters of the oceans, as energy flows through them are currently not monitored nor well-understood
[9].
The potency of concerns over scientific malfeasance were amplified by two key facts of the time. The first was that the email were leaked on the eve of th 2009 Copenhagen Climate Negotiation Meetings, a major United Nations Event in which leaders of 192 of the world’s countries convened to discuss a potential agreement over climate change and the responsibilities of different nations to combat it
[23]. The second was that data from the University of East Anglia were components of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s research base. The IPCC is an organization established by the World Meteorological Association and the United Nations Environmental Programme
[24]. The IPCC synthesizes scientific research on climate and provides summary reports for policymakers across the world.
Concerns of Scientific Misbehavior
The remainder of the concerns are best understood in the context of the sociology of science. How scientists expect themselves and fellow scientists to behave were famously described by Robert K. Merton, who received the National Medal of Science from former United States President Bill Clinton
[26]. The scientific process, as written by Merton, consists of four basic principles: Universalism – that scientific work is defined by its substance and not by the scientist responsible, Communism – that the fruits of scientific work belonged to all (
Note: Merton very explicitly differentiated this “Communism” from Marxism), Disinterestedness – that scientists should not be motivated by outside interests and biases when performing scientific work – and Organized Skepticism – that every claim should be equally scrutinized and tested
[25] by fellow scientists.
Many of us in the paleo field get requests from skeptics (mainly a guy called Steve McIntyre in Canada) asking us for series. Mike and I are not sending anything, partly because we don’t have some of the series he wants, also partly as we’ve got the data through contacts like you, but mostly because he’ll distort and misuse them. Despite this, Mike and I would like to make as many of the series we’ve used in the [Reviews of Geophysics] plots available from the CRU web page.
~
My personal opinion is that both FOI requests [for data related to a 2008 paper and for correspondence dating back to 2006] are intrusive and unreasonable. Steven McIntyre provides absolutely no scientific justification or explanation for such requests. … McIntyre has no interest in improving our scientific understanding of the nature and causes of climate change. He has no interest in rational scientific discourse. He deals in the currency of threats and intimidation. We should be able to conduct our scientific research without constant fear of an “audit” by Steven McIntyre; without having to weigh every word we write in every email we send to our scientific colleagues.
When the FOI requests began here, the FOI person said we had to abide by the requests. It took a couple of half hour sessions -- one at a screen, to convince them otherwise showing them what CA was all about. Once they became aware of the types of people we were dealing with, everyone at UEA […] became very supportive.
A component of the scandal, albeit one with a history long preceding Climategate itself, was the matter of Freedom of Information Act requests. As a public institution, the University of East Anglia had a legal obligation to fulfill Freedom of Information Act requests (FOI requests), in which any information that requested of the University had to be fulfilled, within legal limits. CRU scientists began to feel that the law was being abused, and that skeptics were using their blogs to coordinate request brigading to waste as much of the research program’s time as possible. CRU scientists lamented this phenomena, joking or discussing the prospect of obstructing the process along the way. Ensuing investigations found that actual instances of this happening were overblown and that, while CRU could have been more open with regard to FOI requests, that no wrongdoing had been committed as the emails had suggested. While skeptics did accurately observe that the University, even after claiming it made an effort to open as much data to public access as it could, did not publically release all of the climate data. CRU defended itself, noting that 95% of its data had been made publically available and that the remaining data came from other institutions, and that they themselves did not hold the legal title to publically distribute the data
[28].
Next time I see Pat Michaels [A fellow of the conservative Cato Institute] at a scientific meeting, I’ll be tempted to beat the crap out of him. Very tempted.
In an odd way [the death of long-time climate change skeptic John Daly] is cheering news!
The resulting investigations noted, the seemingly unprofessional attitudes contained within these emails had no bearing on if scientific misconduct had transpired. Furthermore, the history behind the emails were more complicated than could be captured not only out of their original context, but without an understanding of how the Climatic Research Unit was operating. Finally, a key lesson noted in many of the reports, as well as in opinion pieces published by scientific journals and institutions, was that scientists are human like anybody else, and how they privately conduct themselves are an irrelevant when considering their professional conduct.
Despite the fact that CRU’s scientists were found to have upheld professional standards, the accusations not relating to the manipulation of data or the presentation of data did have decided merit. For the various reasons previously described, CRU scientists did, in some of the hacked emails, display behavior arguably violating the social norms of science. For example, the rejection of skeptical work – although the scientists felt they were justified – violated the principles of Universalism. The handling of FOI requests, although not motivated for reasons purely scientific, violated the norm of Communism. The emotional or aggressive comments presented within the emails depicted a culture not entirely disinterested from the subject that the scientists were studying, violating Merton’s third norm. Finally, from the perspective of a skeptic, the CRU scientists showed no interest in greeting their claims with symettrical skepticism. However, the skeptics were guilty of the same offense, from the perspectives of CRU’s scientists.
The actual merits of these norms – as well as whether or not they were violated – cast aside, it can be said that sufficient room exists to debate whether or not CRU’s scientists acted as should be expected of scientists. For the skeptical community, Climategate leaves an enduring bruise on their perception of the scientific community affirming anthropogenic climate change.
Aftermath
Following the spread of the story throughout the blogosphere, several media outlets picked up the story such as
The Telegraph[11] and
Fox News[3]. James Inhofe, long-standing environmental skeptic and, as of 2015, the head of the United States Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works, announced that he would order an inquiry into Climategate so that he could expose what he believed was a conspiracy to control global politics using the climate change “hoax”
[22] . In the process, several CRU scientists reported receiving death threats, which were then investigated by the United States Federal Bureau of Investigation
[5].
More slowly, the debacle lead several institutions to investigate the actions and behavior of the CRU scientists, including the United States Environmental Protection Agency
[12], the United States Department of Commerce
[13], the House of Commons Science and Technology Committee
[14], The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration
[15], The National Science Foundation
[16], Penn State University
[17], Fact-checking websites such as Factcheck.org
[18] and Politifact.com
[19] and several other independent investigations
[20]. All found no evidence of scientific wrong-doing by the CRU scientists and declared the scandal concerns unfounded.
In response, the editorial staff of the peer-reviewed Nature journal wrote:
Climate scientists are on the defensive, knocked off balance by a re-energized community of global-warming deniers who, by dominating the media agenda, are sowing doubts about the fundamental science. Most researchers find themselves completely out of their league in this kind of battle because it's only superficially about the science. The real goal is to stoke the angry fires of talk radio, cable news, the blogosphere and the like, all of which feed off of contrarian story lines and seldom make the time to assess facts and weigh evidence. Civility, honesty, fact and perspective are irrelevant[21].
The Union of Concerned Scientists wrote:
The stolen emails were published just two weeks ahead of a major U.N. climate change conference in Copenhagen. According to a British newspaper, they were originally hacked in October. Whoever published these emails likely wanted to spread misinformation about climate science to try to undermine the conference. The University of East Anglia, which housed the emails, has launched an investigation to determine who stole them.
Scientists are as human as anybody else.
Some of the other emails simply show scientists expressing frustration and--in one email--even talking (not seriously, we hope) about beating up someone who had, in his view, made an unfair, public attack on his colleague. Such chatter is not surprising to find in private emails. But they have generated widespread attention in part because they don't mesh with the public's image of scientists.
Scientists have a wide array of dispositions. But regardless of how scientists act, they should all advance their arguments through evidence and valid scientific interpretations. The process of science is what is important. Over time, rigorous analyses, vetted through expert peer review, tend to weed out poorly substantiated arguments. And only the best explanations for how the world works--such as the obvious evidence that excess carbon dioxide emissions are driving global warming--survive the process[2].