Climatic Research Unit email controversy
When hacking incident on climate research center, called University of East Anglia in the media as ClimateGate, 2009 documents by researchers at the Climatic Research Unit (CRU ) of the University of East Anglia (United Kingdom) have been stolen by hackers and posted on the Internet in November. Documents about 1,073 emails and 3,485 other files come from a period from 1996 to 2009 and are noisy Philip D. Jones, Director of CRU, genuine. The incident and the subsequent charges against the concerned climate scientists of allegations of scientific dishonesty excited directly ahead of the UN Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen stir in blogs and found mention in the international media. However, several studies from different institutions showed no evidence of scientific misconduct.
The data theft was carried out by a sophisticated, carefully coordinated attack over the Internet. About the Author of data theft nothing definite is known, the investigation by the Norfolk Constabulary were set in July 2012.
- 4.1 Opinions of politicians
- 7.1 Research Reports
2011 E- mails from the CRU were re- published in the run-up to the Durban climate conference. These also come from the period before 2009.
Official investigations
Background
Some scientists, primarily the director of the CRU, Philip D. Jones, and working at the Pennsylvania State University Michael E. Mann, were accused because of certain e- mails, data manipulated and kept secret and making arrangements for harassment of critics to have. Their publications should be kept out, according to the allegations, for example, from the report of the IPCC and are hindered in peer -review process. Jones also was accused that he had man the deletion of certain emails suggested, possibly to counteract to requests under the Freedom of Information Act. An examination of a number of charges was performed by official testing.
The Science Committee of the British House of Commons, a joint commission of inquiry of the University of East Anglia and the British Royal Society and a further parliamentary, independent of the University Commission of Inquiry sat down with the allegations apart from the researchers to Phil Jones at the CRU. A commission of the American Pennsylvania State University and the Inspector General of the National Science Foundation dealt with the allegations against Michael E. Mann. Another official investigation was conducted by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.
Phil Jones rested his position as director of the CRU for the duration of the investigation. It was at this time replaced by Peter Liss.
Science and Technology Committee
The Science Committee of the British House, the Science and Technology Committee, came to the conclusion that the scientists of the Climatic Research Unit no reproach could be done. It can not be assumed that the scientists had tried in the rejection of requests on research results, to let the public about climate data in ignorance. However, was reprimanded the University for their handling of requests under the Freedom of Information Act.
Investigation Commission of the University of East Anglia and the Royal Society
The University of East Anglia appointed a committee to evaluate the scientific (Science Assessment Panel ), the cast was coordinated with the Royal Society. Chairman was Ronald Oxburgh, the former chairman of the Science Committee in the House of Lords; Members were Kerry Emanuel of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Huw Davies of the ETH Zurich, Lisa Graumlich from the University of Arizona, David Hand of Imperial College London, Professor Herbert Huppert and Michael Kelly of the University of Cambridge.
The commission of inquiry also exonerated Jones and his colleagues. There is " no evidence of deliberate scientific misconduct ," the researchers to Jones would have done their job " fairly and accurately " and are used in data processing have been " objectively and dispassionately ". The commission of inquiry also condemned the sharp tone of the climate skeptics.
Commissioner David Hand said that the CRU did no wrong, but not always used the best methods for statistical data analysis. This has not led to noticeable distortions.
Investigation by the Pennsylvania State University and the National Science Foundation
The Pennsylvania State University, at the Michael E. Mann research, convened a commission of inquiry to examine the allegations made against him. The panel consisted of five professors from other departments of the university. Having determined, after completion of the investigations unanimously to the conclusion that man had made no scientific misconduct. Even before a three-member committee of the university had rejected after an initial examination of allegations that man retained data or explosive e- mails would be deleted.
In an investigation report by the Inspector General of the National Science Foundation ( NSF), the results of university examination were essentially confirmed. As regards the allegation of data manipulation led the NSF through its own investigation, in which critics have been heard of Mann's studies. Finally found the NSF, leaving no evidence of scientific misconduct by man were available.
Commission of Inquiry under Muir Russell
The parliamentary, independent of the University investigation was led by Sir Muir Russell. The Commission also belonged to Geoffrey Boulton, Peter Clarke, David Eyton and James Norton. After six months of testing and hearing numerous witnesses, the Commission published on 7 July 2010 its final report. It also came to the conclusion that the charges against Jones and his colleagues allegations of data manipulation and suppression of critics were unjustified. There was no evidence of bias or misleading analyzes by the researchers, even if they had not abused their position to the detriment of critics. There was no evidence has been found for a behavior that would undermine the conclusions of the IPCC, and there was no evidence of subversion of the peer review process. The key data for the reproducibility of the findings of the CRU had been any competent interested parties. The Russell Commission, however, criticized Jones and his colleagues would have had to make the processing of data for the graph explicitly clear in the making of a graphic in 1999, which went down in similar form in the Third Assessment Report of the IPCC. This failure is, however, probably undermined without intention. Also, both the CRU scientists as well as the University of East Anglia had shown a " consistent pattern ", not to demonstrate the "reasonable degree of openness " against critics of their work. However, the sincerity and discipline of the CRU researchers is not at issue.
Investigation by the EPA
After several months of testing of all e- mails and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency exonerated the climate scientists who had only done " frank discussions ", and instead raised serious allegations against their critics. This would bring the scientific facts misunderstood and false accusations. The critics had often read the e -mails only selectively and laid their allegations on exaggerations.
Responses to the research
The findings were interpreted as acquittals for the accused scientists. Phil Jones was moved in July 2010 in the newly created Office of the Research Director at the University of East Anglia. The university stressed that this in no way constituted a demotion.
In August 2010, the BBC apologized to the University of East Anglia that a BBC presenter had said in December 2009 from the fact that university researchers have distorted the climate debate. This statement was wrong, for which he apologized sincerely in the name of the show, said Stephen Mitchell, BBC deputy director and head of BBC news programs.
The Committee under Ronald Oxburgh confirmed on inquiry that he wanted to verify the truth of quality but only from the scientific integrity of the work of the CRU. Phil Willis, Baron Willis of Knaresborough, President and also active in the matter science committee of the British Parliament, spoke in the context of a " sleight of hand ". The Labour MP Graham Stringer criticized both the reports of the Oxburgh as well as the Russell Commission.
In contrast, welcomed Sir Brian Hoskins, climatologist and professor at Imperial College London, the "thorough and fair examination " by the Oxburgh Commission. Sir Martin Rees, former president of the Royal Society, said that one should be " Lord Oxburgh and his expert colleagues " grateful for the " thorough report ," the " an authoritative assessment of CRU's research " deliver and make clear recommendations.
Comments by scientists
Jones admitted that some " quite ghastly " ( pretty awful ) e- mails written to have, but rejected accusations of manipulation. It is also not usual to disclose models and raw data. He regretted not having taken the requests under the Freedom of Information Act seriously enough, but also said they had been deliberately misused to impede the work of the CRU. The Michael also concerned has referred to the publication of the emails as sabotage attempt against the UN Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen.
Richard Somerville, one of the main authors of the Fourth Assessment Report of the IPCC, described the incident as part of a smear campaign, whose aim was to sabotage the UN Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen. Raymond Pierrehumbert sentenced the data theft and defended Phil Jones and Michael Mann, who would only do their work. The incident represents a new escalation of the controversy; could possibly follow in the future manipulation of data and models. Kevin Trenberth, accuses the perpetrators to have published only those materials which might abuse climate skeptics in the controversy surrounding global warming for their purpose.
The publisher of the journal Nature, and various climate scientists, among them Hans von Storch and Hans Joachim Schellnhuber, see the e- mails is no evidence that the "conspiracy of skeptics "; Nature calls such an interpretation of the e- mails " paranoid ". The correctness of the data collected by the CRU global surface air temperature was not affected by the e -mails in question. Anthropogenic climate change is a reality and will continue even more visible.
Attention received, among other things, an e -mail from Jones. He mentioned it as a " trick" to " hide temperature decrease " a: " 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. " Jones wants the word as a " gimmick " (" a clever thing to do " ) to be understood. Several prominent observers, among them Jochem Marotzke, director of the Max Planck Institute for Meteorology, and Hans Joachim Schellnhuber, declared that nothing methodically Unclean of this approach was.
Judith Curry throws man and the other a " siege mentality ", which violates the principle of open communication in science. Von Storch sees in the e- mails trying to keep out alternative views of the scientific process, for example by data were not made available to other researchers. In particular, Phil Jones and Michael Mann should be excluded in the future from such processes due to their unscientific behavior. Stefan Rahmstorf, however, criticized this requirement. According to James E. Hansen did the incident, although no effect on the findings of climatology, however, represented individual emails bad decisions. Hansen recommends that data be made publicly available and the consensus contradictory research should not be prevented from publishing, even if they are of poor quality.
The American Association for the Advancement of Science, publisher of Science magazine, is concerned that the efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, are weakened by the incident.
A commentary by editor Jeff Tollefson in Nature themed potential loss of confidence by the controversy, including in relation to a parody video that was previously immersed in Youtube. According to Tollefson experts were from the classic weather forecast better than the partially disavowed climatologists, the general public almost bring the challenges of climate change in the sequence.
Public discussion
A newspaper commentator spoke of a " feast for climate skeptics ". Although nothing has changed on scientific progress through the publication of the emails, theses few skeptics would clearly broader theme of the media.
Opinions of politicians
Ahead of the UN Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen, the British government rejected the allegations made in connection with the incident back sharply. The then Prime Minister Gordon Brown said that one should not be " anti-science " of climate skeptics get distracted. His Environment Minister Ed Miliband described the skeptics as " Klimasaboteure " who abused data and people led astray. UN Secretary-General Ban Ki -moon also said ahead of Copenhagen, the incident had aroused no doubt about the scientific consensus on anthropogenic share of the global warming. At a Senate hearing in early 2010 and U.S. Secretary of Energy and Nobel Laureate in Physics Steven Chu dismissed doubts about the research and referred to the extensive scientific evidence on climate change.
Attempts to criminalize
The Republican U.S. Sen. Jim Inhofe demanded criminal investigations against climate scientists who were involved in the e-mail controversy, and had his staff draw up a list with the names of 17 scientists, against which should be taken. Scientists responded with sharp criticism on Inhofes demand. Rick Piltz, a former senior official in the Climate Change Science Program of the U.S., designated Inhofes procedure as part of a coordinated campaign whose goal was the intimidation of researchers. Climatologist Gavin Schmidt explained Inhofes message either because scientists who turned to the public being intimidated, harassed and threatened. Similarly, Raymond Bradley commented, who heads the climate research center of the University of Massachusetts Amherst. Several of the scientists concerned had since the beginning of the controversy a flood of hate mail. The climate scientists Michael E. Mann and Stephen Schneider reported violence and death threats against themselves and family members.
The Republican politician and Attorney General of Virginia, Ken Cuccinelli tried since April 2010, to force the University of Virginia for the publication of data and documents related to previous research projects of the climate scientist Michael E. Mann. Cuccinelli wanted man against a legal investigation effort on suspicion of alleged fraudulent acquisition of research funds through manipulated climate data and on the basis that the email controversy. However, he offered no evidence of any misconduct by the scientist and ignored the exculpatory reports more official commissions of inquiry. Cuccinelli's actions came in scientific circles much criticism and were branded as an attack on the freedom of science. 19 professors of Old Dominion University moved to a joint statement parallels between Cuccinelli's actions and the McCarthy era. Protests also came from the American Association for the Advancement of Science ( AAAS ) and the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS ), which accused the Attorney General false allegations. More than 900 U.S. scientists signed a petition has been asked in the Cuccinelli to stop the " totally unjustified " investigation. The leading journal Nature described in an editorial Cuccinelli's action as " ideologically motivated inquisition " would be harassed and intimidated by the scientists. The Washington Post commented, the Attorney General have the freedom of research declared war. Even the climate skeptic Stephen McIntyre condemned Cuccinelli's action.
College Teachers Association American Association of University Professors ( AAUP ), which belong to almost 50,000 U.S. scientists, and the civil rights organization American Civil Liberties Union ( ACLU ) called in May 2010, the University of Virginia, to stand up against Cuccinelli's demand for data publishing legally for Weir and offered to the University of their support. After the university had then lodged an appeal against the demand of the Attorney General, a court ruled in first instance that Cuccinelli's demand is incomprehensible reasons. The Court granted the University in its decision right to reject the publication of the data. After the Attorney General had gone in appeal, the Supreme Court of Virginia ruled in March 2012 that Cuccinelli did not have the legal authority to demand the surrender of such data and documents. The decision ended the two-year lawsuit and was seen by commentators as a political embarrassment for Cuccinelli, which deals with the campaign against climate scientists for his upcoming bid for the governorship wanted to profile.
In response to the actions of Inhofe and Cuccinelli an open letter was published by scientists, the 255 members of the National Academy of Sciences signed, including 11 Nobel Prize winners. The signatories called for in the termination of the " McCarthy -like pursuit of our colleagues ." The letter also expressed dismay over the way, such as " Klimawandelverneiner " would not only attack the climate research in general but also individual climate scientists. Such attacks would not be guided by a sincere quest for alternative explanations, but of " interest groups or dogmas ." The signatories also called for an end to the harassment of scientists by politicians who were distractions to prevent climate change.