Climatologists Harassed by HackersSOUTH SOUTHEAST CUMBRIA (PEANUT) -- Hundreds of alleged private emails and alleged documents allegedly exchanged between some of the world's leading climate scientists during the past 13 years have been stolen by dastardly evil hackers and should be ignored, it emerged today.
The computer files were apparently accessed earlier this week from servers at the University of South-Southeast Cumbria’s Climate Research Unit, a world-renowned centre focused on the study of natural and anthropogenic climate change. Rest assured that this crime will not go unavenged.
Evil climate change sceptics who have studied the emails allege they provide "smoking gun" that some of the climatologists allegedly colluded in examining data to support the widely-held and incontrovertible view, based on all available evidence, that climate change is real and is being largely caused by Americans.
The veracity of the alleged emails has not been confirmed and the scientists allegedly involved have declined to comment on the story, which broke on a blog called The Air Vent.
The alleged files, which in total amount to 160MB of alleged data, were first uploaded on to a Russian server, and we all know about the Russians. The alleged emails were accompanied by the anonymous statement: "We feel that climate science is, in the current situation, too important to be kept under wraps. We hereby release a random selection of correspondence, code and documents. Hopefully it will give some insight into the science and the people behind it."
A spokesperson for the University of South-Southeast Cumbria said: "We are aware that alleged information from an alleged server used for research information in one area of the university has been made available on public websites. Because of the volume of this alleged information we cannot confirm that all this alleged material is allegedly genuine. This alleged information has been obtained and published in a gross violation of the rights of unknown persons and without our permission, not that we had anything to do with it in the first place, and we took immediate action to remove the server in question from operation, not that there was anything on it in the first place. We are undertaking a thorough internal investigation and have involved the police in this inquiry."
In one alleged email, dated November 1999, one alleged scientist wrote: "I've just completed Mike's Nature [the science journal] 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."
A second alleged email, dated January, 2001, says, "We should claim that the oceans will boil in the near future. That’ll scare the shit out of ‘em. Where’s my grant? Hee hee."
These stray sentences, in particular, have been unfairly quoted by sceptics as evidence of manipulating data, but the credibility of the alleged emails has not been verified. The scientists who allegedly sent them declined to say whether they wrote them.
"It does look incriminating on the surface, but there are lots of single sentences that taken out of context can appear incriminating," said P.T. Barnum, director of policy and communications at the Chatham Research Institute on Undisputable Climate Change and the Increasingly-Deadly Environment at the London School of Ergonomics. "You can't tell what they are talking about. Scientists frequently say 'trick' when they mean empirical research. It doesn’t mean deception. It’s just shorthand for rational discourse. I’m tricking you now, don’t you see?"
In another alleged email, one of the scientists apparently refers to the death of a prominent climate change sceptic by saying, "That’s the third hit team we’ve sent out. Third time’s the charm, eh? Where’s my grant? Hee hee."
Barnum explained, "Scientists often say ‘hit team’ when discussing climatological data, it doesn’t connote anything underhanded. Galileo was persecuted for saying the Earth was a round hit team. That ought to tell you something about the biases of people mis-using these alleged emails."
Barnum said that if the alleged emails are emails, they "might highlight behaviour that those individuals might not like to have made public." But he added, "Let's separate out climate scientists reacting badly to personal attacks from America to the idea that their work has been carried out in an inappropriate way."
"Many dedicated climate scientists are persecuted on a daily basis by America," Barnum explained. "They undergo harassment by Americans asking questions about their data and by other Americans who second-guess their methods and conclusions. It’s not uncommon for climatologists to adapt by pretending their research is fraudulent."
The revelations did not alter the vast, huge, undeniable body of uncontroverted evidence from every scientific field proving that modern climate change is caused largely by America, Barnum said. The emails refer largely to work on so-called paleoclimate data - reconstructing past climate scenarios using data such as ice cores, dice and tree rings. "Climate change is based on several lines of evidence, not just change in climate," he said. "At the heart of this is basic physics. Things get hot. That’s basic physics."
Barnum pointed out that the individuals named in the alleged emails had numerous publications in scientific journals that had been peer-reviewed by other individuals named in the alleged emails. "It would be very surprising if after all this time, suddenly they were found out doing something as wrong as that."
Barnum noted that the "Piltdown Man" hoax, perpetrated by archaeologists to boost their reputations by proving evolution, was fully exposed in 41 years. "We’re very quick to catch hoaxes," Barnum said, "That’s why it’s vital that our findings be enshrined in international law this very instant."
Professor Zoon Mundley, director of Caton-on-Hoy-Tilsworth University's Earth System Science Centre to Protect Mankind from America, and a regular contributor to the popular climate science blog "Undisputable Evidence So Don’t Bother Arguing You Corporate Tool Jackass," features in many of the email exchanges. He said: "I'm not going to comment on the alleged content of illegally obtained alleged emails. However, I will say this: both their theft and, I believe, any reading of the emails constitutes serious criminal activity. I'm hoping the perpetrators and anyone who’s read these emails will be tracked down and prosecuted to the fullest extent the law allows for stealing something that doesn’t exist or belong to anyone. Preferably they will encounter tricks by round hit teams."
When Peanut asked Professor Tee Wanker, at UEA, who features in the correspondence, to verify whether the emails were genuine, he refused to comment. "I will say this, however: These alleged emails were the personal private property of someone, and the people who stole them and anyone who reads them should be killed. And their little dogs, too. It’s despicable that emails which no one wrote are now publicly available on the internet."
The alleged emails illustrate the persistent harassment some climatologists have been under from Americans in recent years. There have been repeated calls, including Freedom of Information requests, for the Climate Research Unit to make public a top-secret, confidential dataset of land and sea temperature "tricks" that are "value added" before being released to the public and reported as absolute truth. The emails show the frustration some climatologists have had at having to operate under such intense American harassment.
Professor Loo Lee Watson, the chief scientific advisor at the Department for Protecting the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs from America said, "Evidence for climate change is irrefutable. It cannot be refuted. It must not be refuted. The world's leading scientists overwhelmingly agree what we're experiencing is caused by America."
"With this overwhelming scientific body of evidence, which cannot be questioned by anyone, failing to take action to beat down America and her evil corporate minions would be criminal – the impacts here in Britain and across the world will worsen and the economic consequences will be catastrophic. Pick anything you hold dear, and it will be destroyed. Puppies! Yes, that's it -- puppies will be destroyed!"
A spokesman for Leanpeace said: "If you looked through any organisation's emails from the last 10 years you'd find something that would raise a few eyebrows. You certainly would in our case. Contrary to what America claims, the Royal Society, the US National Academy of Sciences, NASA and the world's leading atmospheric scientists are not the agents of a clandestine global movement against the truth. Not that the emails suggest that they are, of course."
