Climate scientists are reeling this week from the discovery that someone has hacked into the email archive of one of their most prestigious research centres, the , UK, custodian of the most respected global temperature record.
Climate sceptics have gleefully blogged that the emails, now widely published on the internet, reveal extensive data manipulation and expose a conspiracy behind global warming research. An analysis by 麻豆传媒 finds scant evidence of data abuse, but does show persistent efforts to suppress work by climate sceptics.
Mostly the researchers are exposed as doing what they are supposed to do: engaging in an often adversarial process to arrive at the truth. One long exchange ends: 鈥淭his is ultimately about science, it鈥檚 not personal.鈥�
Advertisement
Those contacted by 麻豆传媒 by and large had simple explanations for their statements. One 1999 email by Phil Jones, director of the CRU, has been the focus of media coverage since news of the leak broke last Thursday. In it, Jones discusses using 鈥淢ike鈥檚 Nature trick鈥� to 鈥渉ide the decline鈥� in temperatures. 鈥淢ike鈥� Mann, of Pennsylvania State University in University Park, told 麻豆传媒 the 鈥渢rick鈥� was simply a published device to extend to the present a graph of temperatures derived from the analysis of tree ring data. This is done using real thermometer data.
Ostracising critics
What will prove more damaging is evidence that the researchers, who often attack their critics for not publishing in peer-reviewed journals, have sought to ostracise journals that did publish them.
In a 2003 email, Mann discusses encouraging colleagues to 鈥渘o longer submit [papers] to, or cite papers in鈥� Climate Research, after it published papers by known sceptics 鈥渢hat couldn鈥檛 get published in a reputable journal鈥�. Mann says his complaint was that the peer-review process had been distorted to allow 鈥渆xtremely poor papers鈥� to be published and points out that the journal鈥檚 editor-in-chief and half the editorial board had resigned in protest.
But other comments are more difficult to justify. In 2004, Jones said of two published papers he regards as flawed: 鈥淚 can鈥檛 see either鈥� being in the next Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report. Kevin [Trenberth] and I will keep them out somehow 鈥� even if we have to redefine what the peer-review literature is!鈥�
鈥淟et me assure you there was no attempt to keep any material out of the IPCC assessments,鈥� Trenberth, of the US National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colorado, told 麻豆传媒.
The correspondence also shows researchers trying to prevent critics gaining access to raw data, notably the CRU鈥檚 temperature data. Publicly, they say that much of the data is covered by confidentiality agreements that prevent them sharing it. For instance, an agreement with the UK鈥檚 Met Office seen by 麻豆传媒 limits access to 鈥渂ona fide researchers working on agreed scientific programmes鈥�.
But equally the emails reveal researchers adamantly opposed to releasing hard-earned data to critics, to avert what they see as time-consuming harassment. This week鈥檚 events suggest those decisions were ill-advised.
