theangle.org

The Sun. Credit: NASA

By Rich Bowden:

Documents and emails purporting to show manipulation of climate data and suppression of dissenting material have been hacked from the University of East Anglia, U.K.

The university has confirmed the theft of documents though said it is impossible to say if all the data now released on the Internet is genuine.

Climate warming deniers have seized on the documents, available via the blogosphere, which they say shows “…widespread manipulation of data and intentional collusion to stop the publishing of dissenting papers,” according to media reports.

The thousands of documents including private emails between scientists working on key climate reports were plundered from the University’s server last night in an apparent attempt to release information into the public domain prior to the COP15 climate talks in December in Copenhagen.

However whether the data confirms a worldwide conspiracy to directly influence climate data is far from being proven. Though the alleged documents do mention an isolated instance of a Climatic Research Unit researcher apparently using a statistical “trick” in what appears to be an effort to beef up climate data, no allegation has yet been forthcoming of a global conspiracy to influence the data of climate science.

Climate scientists’ site RealClimate said what was more revealing was the lack of claims contained in the documents.

“More interesting is what is not contained in the emails,” said the organisation in a website statement.

“There is no evidence of any worldwide conspiracy, no mention of George Soros nefariously funding climate research, no grand plan to ‘get rid of the MWP’ [Medieval Warm Period], no admission that global warming is a hoax, no evidence of the falsifying of data, and no ‘marching orders’ from our socialist/communist/vegetarian overlords. The truly paranoid will put this down to the hackers also being in on the plot though.”

However prominent Australian journalist and climate sceptic Andrew Bolt, who is covering the story on his website, has described the leaked documents “…as evidence of a scandal involving most of the most prominent scientists pushing the man-made warming theory – a scandal that is one of the greatest in modern science.”

Bolt goes on to say the “…emails suggesting conspiracy, collusion in exaggerating warming data, possibly illegal destruction of embarrassing information, organised resistance to disclosure, manipulation of data, private admissions of flaws in their public claims and much more.”

While the true implications of the leaked information has yet to be revealed, questions over the veracity of climate data will affect the Pacific region directly as, with rising sea levels threatening the very existence of a number of Pacific nations, it is considered to be in the forefront of the effects of climate change.

Coming soon. Science correspondent Michael Hodgkin examines the impact of the leaked documents.