Sounds credible Bazz, the leaking of the emails and documents.

If I was anti-AGW and worked at the University of East Anglia, or worked within the Climate Research Unit ... what a brilliant thing to do just prior to Copenhagen, leak all that stuff.

And if leaking is the case (not hacking) then obviously, a lot of planning must have gone into it. I mean, it must have taken quite a while to select and filter the specific emails and documents to be leaked - because there were many more that were not leaked. Particularly so since all the stuff they had access to goes back to the mid 90's. Yeah, it must have been an insider.

I wouldn't like to be in their shoes though, no matter their intentions. I know it sounds dramatic but some would liken their actions to espionage, or dare I say, terrorism from within. Metaphorically speaking, whoever leaked the stuff will be portrayed as a martyr to the cause, much as a suicide bomber is in their jihad against the infidels.

Regardless, I am glad the University is having an investigation and I am particularly glad the police will be conducting a separate independent investigation - to keep the bastards honest so to speak. I am also relieved Phil Jones has stood aside while the investigations are being carried out.

No doubt the IPCC will also be following investigations very closely - to make sure it is open and transparent, their integrity is at stake as well.

I guess in hindsight, it may have been better if the stuff was hacked, at least then some phantom person or group could be blamed/hailed. But as your link suggests, it is most likely an inside job, planned and orchestrated by some disgruntled (for whatever reason) employee.

Indeed, it appears the timing of this leak was planned to inflict as much possible damage to the UNFCCC conference in Copenhagen, the aim of which is (was?) to get strategies in place to tackle the problems associated with climate change.

For what it's worth Bazz,

I don't think the leak has done much damage at all to the science. I would concede that whoever leaked the emails and documents has generated a lot of noise and confusion, particularly to those that just don't understand the science, or who have adopted an ideological stance, regardless of the science. And if I were one of them, I would be really really peed-off.

So yeah, let's have a full blown investigation.

______

RaeBee

In the scheme of things, we are trashing our home ... and we are trashing the home of others, whatever those others are.

Personally, why should I feel guilty for the former? It's my home and I can do what I damn well like - discounting the pesky spouse/regulator of course :)

The latter is a different story.

Given that I respect you, it follows that I would respect your home. I would feel a disconnect if I trashed your home - and so of course I would feel guilty.

You don't have to accept the rationale behind current 'climate change' RaeBee, but it would seem prudent, for all of us, to respect each other and live in a more sustainable way.

You say:

<< we are the one species that can think logically and problem solve >>

What makes you think the ant can't do the same?

After all, the ant has been around a lot longer than we have. Indeed, what makes you think the ant is not more intelligent than us "logical" beings?

What makes you think the problems are unsolvable?

Yes, I agree that it seems most likely that it was an inside job, rather than a computer hack. Most likely it was bit of both. I'm not given to conspiracy theories, but I suspect strongly that this entire controversy has been planned for a while, and that money has changed hands for nefarious purpose. Someone sold out, and a carefully selected subset of the emails they provided have provided temporary hysterical relief for the climate delusionists.

It was timed and executed beautifully, I must say.

RaeBee - much of what you say is true, but you don't account for the intrinsic differences between humans and ants in both our relative impact on the environment, and the uniquely human attribute that we can collectively imagine the consequences of what we do.

"Mother Nature" can't help us here, It's up to us.

Q&A - I'm fairly confident that, as individuals, ants are generally less intelligent than humans. However, I take your point about how they act collectively in more 'intelligent' ways than humans often do - at least in terms of sustainable subsistence and hence adaptation.

I think the suggestion that the file was made up to comply with an FOI
request and put aside until it had to be supplied, sounds likely to me.

I originally thought the decline being talked about was the one from
1998 but it is clear now, especially as the emails are dated about
1999 or 2000, that they were on about matching the tree ring data to
the thermometer data since 1960 and hiding a fall in the tree data.
It is interesting that the IPCC wanted them to match it in such a way
that made it more presentable.
In the process they seemed to lose the middle ages warm period and
the Maunder minimum. It was that that got Al Gore into trouble.
He got a Nobel Prize for that, hmmmm.

The first attempt to publicise the file failed as the BBC didn't
want to know. If it had become public a month or so earlier it would
have enabled a less rushed examination before Copenhagen.

I posted this inadvertently on another thread Bazz, sorry.

Bazz: "I originally thought the decline being talked about was the one from 1998 but it is clear now ... they were on about matching the tree ring data to the thermometer data since 1960 and hiding a fall in the tree data."

Would you like me to explain the below in further detail?

<< The significance of the divergence is a “problem”, recognised as such by dendrochronologists themselves. The ‘decline’ hasn’t been ‘hidden’, as some people want to believe.

The reliability (of the method) is tested by omitting some of the instrumental data and seeing how the reconstruction matches the known climate at some past time (e.g. volcanic residue, micro-flora, isotopes, etc). I’m sure many people don’t understand this and perhaps take ‘hide the decline’ out of context – for various, nefarious, reasons.

Reconstructions can be tested against historical sources of climate information that go back centuries, and overall reliability is tested with different methodologies, and with different proxy choices (tree rings, corals, ice cores, ocean sediments, stalagmites, etc). If they vary widely, then proxy reconstructions wouldn’t be very reliable. However, if they are consistent (they are) then we can have confidence they’re robust. That’s why the so called “MBH hockey stick” isn’t crucial – there’s dozens of hockey sticks, from many different proxies and from many different sources, that all show the same thing – the warming trend is up. Ok, the methodology of any proxy reconstruction is complicated (I’m no expert) – but, the principles are not.

Obviously, uncertainties do increase the further you go back in time - and the ‘divergence problem’ for trees less than 50 yrs old is, well ... problematic. Agreed, further research must be carried out to explain the ‘divergence’ – but you don’t throw the baby out with the bath water. Much of the misinformation (intentional or otherwise) that surrounds this issue is because people mistake a reconstruction of the past with a present ‘attribution’ – and of course, that’s impossible. >>

You obviously still don't understand "hide the decline".

Cont'd

Cont'd

Bazz, you say: "It is interesting that the IPCC wanted them to match it in such a way that made it more presentable."

There is nothing wrong with publishers (of anything) to ask that contributors (of anything) make their graphs and illustrations more presentable, for clarification. Methinks you (or 'they') are "reading" too much into the whole affair.

You also say: "In the process they seemed to lose the middle ages warm period and the Maunder minimum. It was that that got Al Gore into trouble. He got a Nobel Prize for that, hmmmm."

No Bazz, Al Gore and the IPCC got the Nobel Peace Prize for drawing the world's attention to a problem that has the potential to very seriously threaten world peace.

Also Bazz: "The first attempt to publicise the file failed as the BBC didn't want to know. If it had become public a month or so earlier it would have enabled a less rushed examination before Copenhagen."

Bollocks, Bazz.

I took you to be a genuine 'sceptic' Bazz (not in the scientific sense, of course, but as much as a layman can be). However, that last piece just demonstrates to me that you really haven't got a clue, you are just a plain grumpy old cynic.

I'm sorry mate, I really thought you were a straight shooter - instead, I find you looking for things to bolster your bias - the very things you (and other so called "sceptics") accuse real scientists of doing, just so hypocritical, Bazz. Well, that's not scepticism, that is blind faith, and for me and the 99.999% of other real sceptics don't work, or live, by that maxim.