Breaking News Story: CRU has apparently been hacked – hundreds of files released

Watts Up With That? ^ | 19/11/2009 | Anthony Watts

[jsh3180]

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.

http://www.cru.uea.ac.uk/cru/annrep93/cru.jpg

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….

[PapaBear3625]

More at Hot Air. Emails showing researchers scheming on how to make data fit the theory.

[mewzilla]

bttt.

[maggief]

In other news ...

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/energy/6491195/Al-Gore-could-become-worlds-first-carbon-billionaire.html

Al Gore could become world’s first carbon billionaire

Al Gore, the former US vice president, could become the world’s first carbon billionaire after investing heavily in green energy companies.

//

http://www.rightsidenews.com/200910267004/editorial/the-real-climate-change-catastrophe.html

The Real Climate Change Catastrophe
Written by TheDailyBell.com
Monday, 26 October 2009

EXCERPTS

In 1988, a handful of the scientists who passionately believed in this theory won authorization from the UN to set up the body known as the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). This was the year when the scare over global warming really exploded into the headlines, thanks above all to the carefully staged testimony given to a US Senate Committee by Dr James Hansen, head of NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS), also already an advocate for the theory that (CO2) was causing potentially catastrophic warming.

(snip)

One of the more startling features of the IPCC is just how few scientists have been centrally involved in guiding its findings. They have mainly been British and American, led for a long time by Dr. Houghton (knighted in 1991) as chairman of its scientific working group, who in 1990 founded the Met Office’s Hadley Centre for research into climate change. The centre has continued to play a central role in selecting the IPCC’s contributors to this day, and along with the Climate Research Unit run by Professor Philip Jones at the University of East Anglia, controls HadCrut, one of the four official sources of global temperature data (another of the four, GIStemp, is run by the equally committed Dr. Hansen and his British-born right-hand man, Dr. Gavin Schmidt).

[gov_bean_ counter]

A good old “Up yours” to the Nobel Committee and a return of the Peace Prize is in order.

[PapaBear3625]

BBC is picking it up: BBC: Hackers target world's leading climate research unit.

BBC is just reporting they were hacked, not what the data was.

[mewzilla]

The Peace Prize is a joke. This is a crime.

[PapaBear3625]

Meanwhile, the frauds had priorly issued this Global temperatures set to rise by 6C by end of century

[PapaBear3625]

Examiner.com: CRU director admits hacked files genuine. Contains stuff on CRU director attempting to quash paper critical of global warming via peer review process.

[PapaBear3625]

It’s going to be interesting to see how the people who supported leaks from the Bush Administration are going to react to this. Will they support “the public’s right to know”?

[browardchad]

It’s going to be interesting to see how the people who supported leaks from the Bush Administration are going to react to this. Will they support “the public’s right to know”?

Of course not. They'll call it a crime and demand that the hacker(s)(or mole) be brought to justice.

We all know the hypocrite drill by now.

[shield]

LOL

[ConservativeMind]

Earlier thread on issue here:

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2390650/posts

[iopscusa]

evidently the Hadley files that have been liberated are HUGE and cover many years of climate crime....they are being dissected by many at this moment and if Obama or co-crooks are implicated we will hear about it!

[for-q-clinton]

Here’s my concern.

It’s only blog type news sources that are even saying it was hacked. This Hadley guy appears to talkt to bloggers but not real reporters about the situation.

Then you see things like “If this is fake it’s so elaborate that it’s impossible to conceive someone would do such a thing.” or “I’ve seen the files and they are massive”

We have to be careful not to be like Dan Rather, “Fake, but true”

[SeattleBruce]

Here’s my concern.

It’s only blog type news sources that are even saying it was hacked. This Hadley guy appears to talkt to bloggers but not real reporters about the situation.
+++++++++++++++++

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/8370282.stm

BBC picked up the story - just not anything about the content of the emails and docs...

[for-q-clinton]

Thanks for that link. That helps a ton.

And the fact that they aren’t covering the conent means it probably is true :-)

[GonzoGOP]

Good thing we have all of those journalism students who are going to save the world by shining the light on the corruption.

Well it was a couple of journalism students that shined the light on ACORN. :)

[Tzimisce]

Can’t wait to see what the spin is.

[Brett66]

Phil Jones and Michael Mann were both authors in the IPCC report and they’re admitting to deleting data that didn’t support the AGW scam.

Some of the other emails show that they probably circumvented standard practices in journals so they could show whatever data they wanted to show.

These scientific journals probably knowingly went along with it.

They didn’t just uncover some roaches when they lifted this rock, it was an entire snake pit!

[CodeToad]

BTTT