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The Hubert Lamb Building, University of East Anglia, where the Climatic Research Unit is based

The Climatic Research Unit email controversy (often called "Climategate" in the media) began in November 2009 with the unauthorised release on the Internet of thousands of e-mails and other documents from the University of East Anglia's Climatic Research Unit (CRU), which some commentators interpreted as indicating misconduct on the part of climate scientists. An independent review of the e-mail exchanges and the CRU's policies and working practices is being carried out by Sir Muir Russell at the request of the University of East Anglia, and a separate independent review is being conducted of the CRU's published research. The CRU's director, Professor Phil Jones stood aside from his post during the review. According to the university, the e-mails and documents were obtained through the hacking of a server. Norfolk police are conducting a criminal investigation of the server breach.

Timeline of the initial incident

The incident began when someone accessed a server used by the Climatic Research Unit and copied 160 MB of data containing more than 1,000 e-mails and 3,000 other documents. The University of East Anglia stated that the server from which the data were taken was not one that could easily have been accessed and the data could not have been released inadvertently.

The breach was first discovered on 17 November 2009 after the server of the RealClimate website was hacked and a copy of the stolen data was uploaded. According to Gavin Schmidt of RealClimate, "At around 6.20am (EST) Nov 17th, somebody hacked into the RC server from an IP address associated with a computer somewhere in Turkey, disabled access from the legitimate users, and uploaded a file FOIA.zip to our server." A link to the file on the RealClimate server was posted from a Russian IP address to the Climate Audit blog at 7.24 am (EST i.e. at 2009-11-17 12:24Z) with the comment "A miracle just happened." Schmidt discovered the RealClimate hack minutes after it occurred. He temporarily shut down the website and deleted the uploaded file. RealClimate reported that they had notified the University of East Anglia of the incident.

On 19 November an archive file containing the data was uploaded to a server in Tomsk, Russia, before being copied to numerous locations across the Internet. An anonymous post from a Saudi Arabian IP address to the climate-sceptic blog The Air Vent, described the material as "a random selection of correspondence, code, and documents" and stated that climate science is "too important to be kept under wraps".

The Norfolk police subsequently confirmed that they were "investigating criminal offences in relation to a data breach at the University of East Anglia" with the assistance of the Metropolitan Police's Central e-Crime unit, the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) and the National Domestic Extremism Team (NDET). Commenting on the involvement of the NDET, a spokesman said: "At present we have two police officers assisting Norfolk with their investigation, and we have also provided computer forensic expertise. While this is not strictly a domestic extremism matter, as a national police unit we had the expertise and resource to assist with this investigation, as well as good background knowledge of climate change issues in relation to criminal investigations." However, the police cautioned that "major investigations of this nature are of necessity very detailed and as a consequence can take time to reach a conclusion."

Content of the documents

Further information: Climatic Research Unit documents

The material comprised more than 1,000 e-mails, 2,000 documents, as well as commented source code, pertaining to climate change research covering a period from 1996 until 2009. According to an analysis by The Guardian, the vast majority of the e-mails related to just four climatologists: Phil Jones, the head of the CRU; Michael E. Mann of Pennsylvania State University (PSU), one of the originators of the graph of temperature trends dubbed the "hockey stick graph"; Tim Osborn, a climate modeller; and Mike Hulme, director of the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research. The four were either recipients of senders of all but 66 of the 1,073 e-mails, with most of the remainder of the e-mails being sent from mailing lists. A few other e-mails were sent by, or to, other staff at the CRU. Jones, Briffa, Osborn and Hulme had written high-profile scientific papers on climate change that had been cited in reports by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change; they had aroused the ire of climate change sceptics for declining to release data or computer code, citing commercial agreements with suppliers. RealClimate's Gavin Schmidt told The Guardian that the files were obtained through "a hack into backup mail server."

Most of the e-mails concerned technical and mundane aspects of climate research, such as data analysis and details of scientific conferences. The Guardian's analysis of the e-mails found that the hacker had filtered them to remove routine administrative messages, focusing on e-mails containing the words "data", "climate", "paper", "research", "temperature" and "model".

The controversy has focused on a small number of e-mails. They included discussions of how to combat the arguments of climate change sceptics, unflattering comments about sceptics, queries from journalists, and drafts of scientific papers. Many commentators quoted one e-mail referring to the "trick" used in Mann's graph to deal with the well-known tree ring divergence problem and "hide the decline" that particular proxy showed for modern temperatures after 1950, when measured temperatures were rising. These phrases were taken out of context by some climate change sceptics as though they referred to a decline in measured global temperatures, even though they were written when temperatures were at a record high. In their inquiry into allegations of research misconduct, Penn State reviewers found "he so-called ‘trick’ was nothing more than a statistical method used to bring two or more different kinds of data sets together in a legitimate fashion by a technique that has been reviewed by a broad array of peers in the field."

Newspapers, government organisations and bloggers alleged that the e-mails showed climate scientists colluded to withhold scientific information, interfered with the peer review process to prevent dissenting scientific papers from being published, and deleted e-mails and raw data to prevent data being revealed under the Freedom of Information Act.

Computer code and a readme file included in the documents were the subject of discussion on the internet and in certain press outlets.

Responses

In the United Kingdom and United States, there were calls for official inquiries into issues raised by the documents. The British Conservative politician Lord Lawson said, "The integrity of the scientific evidence ... has been called into question. And the reputation of British science has been seriously tarnished. A high-level independent inquiry must be set up without delay." Bob Ward of the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment at the London School of Economics said that there had to be a rigorous investigation into the substance of the email messages once appropriate action has been taken over the hacking, to clear the impression of impropriety given by the selective disclosure and dissemination of the messages. United States Senator Jim Inhofe also planned to demand an inquiry.

University of East Anglia

The University of East Anglia was notified of the possible security breach on 17 November, but when the story was published in the press on 20 November they had no statement ready. On 24 November, Trevor Davies, the University of East Anglia pro-vice-chancellor with responsibility for research, rejected calls for Jones' resignation or firing: "We see no reason for Professor Jones to resign and, indeed, we would not accept his resignation. He is a valued and important scientist." The university announced it would conduct an independent review to "address the issue of data security, an assessment of how we responded to a deluge of Freedom of Information requests, and any other relevant issues which the independent reviewer advises should be addressed."

The university announced on 1 December that Phil Jones was to stand aside as director of the Unit until the completion of an independent review. Two days later, the university announced that Sir Muir Russell would chair the review, and would "examine e-mail exchanges to determine whether there is evidence of suppression or manipulation of data". The review would also scrutinise the CRU's policies and practices for "acquiring, assembling, subjecting to peer review, and disseminating data and research findings" and "their compliance or otherwise with best scientific practice". In addition, the investigation would review CRU's compliance with Freedom of Information Act requests and also 'make recommendations about the management, governance and security structures for CRU and the security, integrity and release of the data it holds."

On 22 March 2010 the university announced the composition of an independent panel to reassess the science covered in key CRU papers which have already been peer reviewed and published in journals. The panel will be chaired by Lord Oxburgh, and members are to be members of the panel are: Professor Huw Davies of ETH Zurich, Professor Kerry Emanual at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Professor Lisa Graumlich of the University of Arizona, Professor David Hand of Imperial College London, and Professors Herbert Huppert and Michael Kelly of the University of Cambridge. It is due to start its work in April 2010.

UK Met Office

On November 23, a spokesman for the Met Office, a UK agency which works with the CRU in providing global-temperature information, said there was no need for an inquiry. "The bottom line is that temperatures continue to rise and humans are responsible for it. We have every confidence in the science and the various datasets we use. The peer-review process is as robust as it could possibly be."

On December 5, however, concerned that public confidence in the science had been damaged by the e-mails, the Met Office indicated their intention to re-examine 160 years of temperature data, as well as to release temperature records for over 1000 worldwide weather stations online. The Met Office remained confident that its analysis will be shown to be correct and that the data would show a temperature rise over the past 150 years.

UK Government

On January 22, 2010, the Science and Technology Select Committee of the Parliament of the United Kingdom announced it would conduct an inquiry into the incident, examining the implications of the disclosure for the integrity of scientific research, reviewing the scope of the independent Muir Russell review announced by the UEA, and reviewing the independence of international climate data sets. The Committee held an oral evidence session on 1 March 2010.

The committee invited written submissions from interested parties on the three issues that it will examine, by Wednesday 10 February. It has published 55 such submissions received by that date. Submissions have been received from the University of East Anglia, the Global Warming Policy Foundation, the Institute of Physics, the Royal Society of Chemistry, the Met Office, several other bodies, prominent scientists, some global warming 'sceptics', some MEPs and other interested parties. Each submission includes evidence and viewpoints from the body or individual concerned as well as a declaration of their interests. The report submitted by the Institute of Physics expresses concern about the CRU's scientific integrity. According to this report, the emails reveal evidence of "determined and coordinated refusals" to comply with scientific traditions through "manipulation of the publication and peer-review system" and "intolerance to challenge". This report was used by climate sceptics to bolster claims that the problem of global warming is exaggerated. This forced the Institute of Physics to confirm that its position was that "the basic science is well enough understood to be sure that our climate is changing, and that we need to take action now to mitigate that change." Many experts considered that the correction was still inadequate, with climatologist Andy Russell describing the allegation of data suppression as "incorrect and irresponsible". The institute said that the statement had been prepared by their energy subcommittee, but would not reveal who had produced it. It did say that the subcommittee included an IOP official named Peter Gill, whose company provides services to the energy industry and who has written that for many people, the subject of anthropogenic global warming "has become a religion, so facts and analysis have become largely irrelevant". The institute said that Gill was not the main source of information and that other members of the sub-committee were also critical of CRU. Evan Harris, a Liberal Democrat member of the Science and Technology Select Committee, said "Members of the Institute of Physics ... may be concerned that the IOP is not as transparent as those it wishes to criticise." However the institute told the Guardian that the submission was "approved by three members of its science board" and supplied comments from an anonymous board member stating "The institute should feel relaxed about the process by which it generated what is, anyway, a statement of the obvious... the points makes are ones which we continue to support, that science should be practiced openly and in an unbiased way."

With reference to freedom of information requests made by an individual, the Deputy Information Commissioner with responsibility for the Freedom of Information Act 2000 (FOIA), Graham Smith, issued a statement which was published on 27 January 2010; "The emails which are now public reveal that Mr Holland's requests under the Freedom of Information Act were not dealt with as they should have been under the legislation. Section 77 of the Freedom of Information Act makes it an offence for public authorities to act so as to prevent intentionally the disclosure of requested information." The university said it had not been made aware of the statement by Smith. In its submission to the Science and Technology Select Committee, the university denied allegations that it had refused to release raw data in breach of the FOIA. It said that a letter it had received from the ICO showed that no breach of the law had been established, with the ICO statement only referring to prima facie evidence, and that Mr. Holland's request at issue concerned private e-mails. The Times reported that Evan Harris said that it would be unwise for the university to attempt to portray the ICO's letter in a positive light, as the correspondence would be examined by the Committee. Smith's letter had stated that "the prima facie evidence from the published e-mails indicate an attempt to defeat disclosure by deleting information. It is hard to imagine more cogent prima facie evidence." The university said that the point being made in their submission was that "there has been no investigation so no decision, as was widely reported. The ICO read e-mails and came to assumptions but has not investigated or demonstrated any evidence that what may have been said in emails was actually carried out."

Other responses

Rajendra Pachauri, chairman of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, told the BBC in December 2009 that he considered the affair to be "a serious issue and we will look into it in detail." He later clarified that the IPCC would review the incident to identify lessons to be learned, and he rejected suggestions that the IPCC itself should carry out an investigation. The only investigations being carried out were those of the University of East Anglia and the British police.

Pennsylvania State University announced in December 2009 it would review the work of Michael Mann, in particular looking at anything that had not already been addressed in an earlier National Academy of Sciences review which had found some faults with his methodology but agreed with the results. In response, Mann said he would welcome the review. As a result of the inquiry, the investigatory committee determined there was no credible evidence Mann suppressed or falsified data, destroyed email, information and/or data related to the IPCC Fourth Assessment Report, or misused privileged or confidential information. The committee did not issue a definitive finding on the final point of inquiry—whether Mann had operated within acceptable practices "for proposing, conducting, or reporting research or other scholarly activities". This fourth complaint will be investigated by five prominent Penn State scientists from other scientific disciplines.

In a series of e-mails sent through an National Academy of Sciences (NAS) listserv, apparently forwarded outside the group by an unknown person, scientists discussing the "Climategate" fallout considered launching advertising campaigns, widening their public presence, pushing the NAS to take a more active role in explaining climate science and creating a nonprofit to serve as a voice for the scientific community. Members of the NAS complained that "science is getting creamed with no effective response." One researcher called for "a relentless rain of science and scientific dialog on the incredible, destructive demagoguery." Another urged an "aggressively partisan approach."

See also

References

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  2. ^ "Climate sceptics claim leaked emails are evidence of collusion among scientists". The Guardian. Retrieved 2009-11-24.
  3. Eilperin, Juliet (21 November 2009). "Hackers steal electronic data from top climate research center". The Washington Post.
  4. Lowthorpe, Shaun (2009-12-01). "Scotland Yard call in to probe climate data leak from UEA in Norwich". Norwich Evening News.
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  6. Schmidt, Gavin (23 November 2009). "The CRU hack: Context". RealClimate.
  7. McIntyre, Steve (23 November 2009). ""A miracle just happened"". Climate Audit.
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  40. 'Climategate' Scientist Admits 'Awful E-Mails,' but Peers Say IPCC Conclusions Remain Sound - NYTimes.com
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  46. Press Association (25 February 2010). "University of East Anglia rejects lost climate data claims | Environment". The Guardian. Retrieved 2010-02-26. {{cite web}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |coauthors= (help)
  47. Ben Kendall (2010-02-26). "UEA rejects 'Climategate' accusations - - EDP24". Norfolk News. Retrieved 2010-02-26.
  48. University ‘tried to mislead MPs on climate change e-mails’, The Times 27 February 2010.
  49. "UN body wants probe of climate e-mail row". BBC. 2009-12-04. Archived from the original on 2010-01-06. Retrieved 2010-01-06. Dr Pachauri told BBC Radio 4's The Report programme that the claims were serious and he wants them investigated. "We will certainly go into the whole lot and then we will take a position on it," he said. "We certainly don't want to brush anything under the carpet. This is a serious issue and we will look into it in detail. Saudi Arabia's lead climate negotiator has said the e-mail row will have a "huge impact" on next week's UN climate summit in Copenhagen. Mohammad Al-Sabban told BBC News that he expects it to derail the single biggest objective of the summit - to agree limitations on greenhouse gas emissions. "It appears from the details of the scandal that there is no relationship whatsoever between human activities and climate change," he told BBC News."
  50. Wilkinson, Marian (2009-12-10). "No cover-up inquiry, climate chief". The Age. Retrieved 2009-12-09.
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  56. Nisbet, Matthew C. "Chill Out: Climate scientists are getting a little too angry for their own good." Slate. 18 March 2010.

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