Climategate

Learn more from the Center for Media and Democracy's research on climate change.

The Climatic Research Unit hacking incident, which global warming skeptics refer to as Climategate, came to light in November 2009 with the unauthorized release of thousands of e-mails and other documents obtained through the hacking of a server used by the Climatic Research Unit (CRU) of the University of East Anglia (UEA) in Norwich, England.

"Climate deniers illegally hacked into scientists' emails and claimed they showed scientists, including [Michael] Mann, manipulating data. Their charges were investigated by four separate bodies, each one reaffirming the soundness of the science, and exonerating the scientists. In other words, Climategate was over nothing, it turned out. Instead of data, it was the press that had been manipulated", summarized Shawn Otto.

Information on theft

The University of East Anglia described the incident as an illegal taking of data. The police are conducting a criminal investigation of the server breach and subsequent personal threats made against some of the scientists mentioned in the e-mails.

Extracts from the e-mails have been publicized and posted online, and allegations have been made that they indicate misconduct by leading climate scientists such as withholding scientific information, interfering with the peer-review process, deleting information, and manipulating data. A December 2009 Associated Press investigation involving examination of the 1,073 e-mails by five reporters, however, found that the allegations are largely unsubstantiated and the "exchanges don't undercut the vast body of evidence showing the world is warming because of man-made greenhouse gas emissions."

Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change head Rajendra Pachauri has suggested that the incident was intended to undermine the then imminent December 2009 Copenhagen global climate summit.

Content of the e-mails

The material comprised more than 1,000 e-mails and 2,000 documents, as well as commented source code, pertaining to climate change research covering a period from 1996 until 2009. Most of the e-mails concerned technical and mundane aspects of climate research, such as data analysis and details of scientific conferences. The controversy has focused on a small number of e-mails, particularly those sent to or from climatologists Phil Jones, the head of the Climatic Research Unit (CRU), and Michael Mann of Pennsylvania State University (PSU), one of the originators of the graph showing steadily rising temperature trends dubbed the "hockey stick graph".

Some of the e-mails which have been widely publicized included expressed frustration over perceived harassment by climate change skeptics, concerns about the validity of skeptics' research, and drafts of scientific papers.

The leaked emails are indexed at "East Anglia Emails.com" and at "Climate-Gate.org".

E-mails involving frustration with climate change skeptics

Many e-mails expressed frustration with constant requests for data from global warming skeptics. Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests for government-funded research can be filed under 1993’s Shelby Amendment, drafted by Jim Tozzi, former consultant for Phillip Morris, which used the amendment to try and undermine U.S. Environmental Protection Agency research on the effects of secondhand smoke. Lawrence Livermore National Lab scientist Ben Santer, who has received death threats for his climate change research since 1996, told the AP that he and other scientists are inundated by frivolous requests from skeptics that are designed to "tie-up government-funded scientists":

• Drawing upon requested climate data, former London financial trader Douglas J. Keenan claimed to have found evidence of fakery in a 1990 research paper by CRU head Phil Jones' co-author, University at Albany scientist Wei-Chyung Wang. Keenan threatened to have the FBI arrest Wang for fraud (a university investigation later cleared Wang of any wrongdoing). In response to the incident, Jones wrote in an e-mail in June 2007 that "I do now wish I'd never sent them the data after their FOIA request!"

• After not releasing data to a skeptic because it was already public, Ben Santer wrote that he then opted to "release everything the skeptic wanted — and more." In another e-mail regarding constant requests for data, researcher Keith Briffa wrote, “I believe none of us should submit to these 'requests.'" Phil Jones also e-mailed: "Data is covered by all the agreements we sign with people, so I will be hiding behind them."

• After receiving multiple FOIA requests, Phil Jones told scientist Michael Mann: "You can delete this attachment if you want. Keep this quiet also, but this is the person who is putting FOI requests for all e-mails Keith [Briffa] and Tim [Osborn] have written." The e-mail goes against scientific requirements of openness and transparency, but no e-mails were actually deleted.

Other e-mails expressed concern with skeptics having access to CRU's data, particularly Stephen McIntyre and Ross McKitrick, who both consistently attack the "hockey stick" study, a graph showing the earth's temperature steadily rising since the 1900s, partially conducted by Michael Mann:

• A February 2, 2005 email from Phil Jones to Michael Mann includes: "And don't leave stuff lying around on ftp sites - you never know who is trawling them. The two MMs [Steve McIntyre and Ross McKitrick] have been after the CRU station data for years. If they ever hear there is a Freedom of Information Act now in the UK, I think I'll delete the file rather than send to anyone. Does your similar act in the US force you to respond to enquiries within 20 days?—our does! The UK works on precedents, so the first request will test it. We also have a data protection act, which I will hide behind." Pro-Vice Chancellor of Research at University of East Anglia, Trevor Davies, said that no data was deleted or "otherwise dealt with in any fashion with the intent of preventing the disclosure"

• In a May 2008 e-mail, Phil Jones writes to Michael Mann, with the subject line "IPCC & FOI": "Can you delete any emails you may have had with Keith re AR4? Keith will do likewise…Can you also email Gene and get him to do the same? I don't have his new email address." Trevor Davies responded by saying that despite Jones' suggestion to delete records, no records were actually deleted.

An article in Mother Jones noted that McIntyre was particularly interested in East Anglia's Climatic Research Unit, keepers of one of the most complete sets of temperature records in the world, and had asked the unit for raw data but was rebuffed because of his past efforts at distorting data and facts. In 2008, McIntyre sought raw data and email correspondence from Santer, a scientist at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, who refused, arguing that the data were already publicly available. In just the last week of July 2009, CRU received 58 FOIA requests from McIntyre and others. CRU head Phil Jones argued that responding to these requests was creating an "unmanageable burden." In September 2009, RealClimate, a blog launched by Mann and other scientists to fight back against "skeptics," drafted a public statement about what they saw as a pattern: "An unverified accusation of malfeasance is made based on nothing, and it is instantly 'telegraphed' across the denial-o-sphere while being embellished along the way to apply to anything 'hockey-stick' shaped and any and all scientists, even those not even tangentially related. The usual suspects become hysterical with glee that finally the 'hoax' has been revealed and congratulations are handed out all round...Net effect on lay people? Confusion. Net effect on science? Zip." McIntyre's latest requests for both the raw CRU data and the email correspondence between scientists about those data were formally denied on November 13, 2009. Four days later, a massive bundle of files named FOIA.zip was anonymously posted on several prominent skeptic blogs and RealClimate with several years' worth of the climate scientists' email exchanges.

E-mails expressing doubt about quality of skeptics’ research

Other e-mails expressed concern about the quality of research published or conducted by global warming skeptics, sometimes in conjunction with conservative think tanks:

• When the journal, Climate Research, published a study questioning climate change that turned out to be partly funded by the American Petroleum Institute, Penn State scientist Mann suggested: "Perhaps we should encourage our colleagues in the climate research community to no longer submit to, or cite papers in, this journal" because the paper in question “couldn't have cleared a 'legitimate' peer review process anywhere. That leaves only one possibility--that the peer-review process at Climate Research has been hijacked by a few skeptics on the editorial board…. The skeptics appear to have staged a 'coup' at 'Climate Research' (it was a mediocre journal to begin with, but now its a mediocre journal with a definite 'purpose')."

• E-mails were also critical of Steve McIntyre, a mathematician and economist who used to work for the mineral exploration industry. McIntyre maintains Climate Audit, a blog that focuses on publicizing statistical issues with scientists' attempts to recreate the climate in ancient times. McIntyre told AP that climate scientists are "overreaching in the conclusions that they're trying to draw from the data that they have." Some CRU e-mails said McIntyre's attempts to get original data from scientists were frivolous and meant more for harassment than doing good science. There are allegations that he would distort and misuse data given to him, with e-mails calling McIntyre a "bozo," "fraud," and a "moron".

• A July 8, 2004 e-mail from Phil Jones to Michael Mann said in part: "The other paper by MM [Steve McIntyre and Ross McKitrick] is just garbage. [...] I can't see either of these papers being in the next IPCC report. Kevin and I will keep them out somehow — even if we have to redefine what the peer-review literature is!” IPCC chairman Rajendra Pachauri stated that the papers that had been criticized were not suppressed, and "were actually discussed in detail in chapter six of the Working Group I report of the IPCC Fourth Assessment Report."

Climategate II

E-mails concerning scientific data

Other e-mails expressed frustration with particular scientific data:

• One e-mail that skeptics have been citing often since the messages were posted online is from Phil Jones: "I've just completed Mike's [Mann] trick of adding in the real temps to each series for the last 20 years [from 1981 onward] and from 1961 for Keith's to hide the decline." Jones was referring to tree ring data that indicated temperatures after the 1950s weren't as warm as scientists had determined.. (re "hide the decline", Phil Jones has explained that "The (World Meteorological) Organisation wanted a relatively simple diagram for their particular audience. What we started off doing was the three series with the instrumental temperatures on the end, clearly differentiated from the tree ring series, but they thought that was too complicated to explain to their audience. So, so what we did was just to add them on and bring them up to the present. And, as I say, this was a World Meteorological Organisation statement. It had hardly any coverage in the media at the time, and had virtually no coverage for the next ten years, until the release of the emails." ) The "trick" that Jones said he was borrowing from Mann was to add the real temperatures, not what the tree rings showed. And the decline he talked of hiding was not in real temperatures, but in the tree ring data that was misleading. Before the incident, continuing research had already presented reconstructions based on more proxies, and found similar results with or without the tree ring records.

• Another e-mail expressed frustration about inconsistent figures in the work for a big international report. David Rind told colleagues: "As this continuing exchange has clarified, what's in Chapter 6 is inconsistent with what is in Chapter 2 (and Chapter 9 is caught in the middle!). Worse yet, we've managed to make global warming go away! (Maybe it really is that easy...:)." The AP investigation found that the inconsistent figures for the one report does not undercut the scientific consensus on climate change.

• An email written by Kevin Trenberth discussed gaps in understanding of recent temperature variations: "Saying it is natural variability is not an explanation. What are the physical processes? Where did the heat go?", "How come you do not agree with a statement that says we are no where close to knowing where energy is going or whether clouds are changing to make the planet brighter. We are not close to balancing the energy budget. The fact that we can not account for what is happening in the climate system makes any consideration of geoengineering quite hopeless as we will never be able to tell if it is successful or not! It is a travesty!", and "The fact is that we can't account for the lack of warming at the moment and it is a travesty that we can't." Trenberth told the AP that the email referred to an article he authored calling for improvement in measuring global warming to describe unusual data, such as rising sea surface temperatures. The word travesty refers to what Trenberth sees as an inadequate observing system that, were it more adequate, would be able to track the warming he believes is there.

The AP investigation found none of the CRU e-mails or documents involved falsification of data or "disproved" climate change.

Investigation into the hacking

The investigation into who hacked the server is still ongoing. Mother Jones reported that the hacker was at least familiar with the climate-science debate to know enough to search through the hacked emails using keywords like "Mann," "hockey stick," and "Phil Jones" and to sort them accordingly. A source close to the CRU explains that the unit's security wasn't very tight—its server is separate from the rest of the university's. But some complexity was involved: once the hacker breached the server, he still would have had to find his way into the system administrator's account, a feat that could have required special software to access the password. Then, in order to remain anonymous when posting the emails online, he would have had to scan the internet for nonsecure servers to work from to cover his own IP address. The hacker also used servers in multiple countries, making it difficult to trace his whereabouts.

It also later became clear that CRU was not the only target. In the fall of 2009, unknown parties posing as network technicians attempted to break into the office of a climate scientist at the University of Victoria in British Columbia. There were also attempts to gain access to servers at the Canadian Centre for Climate Modelling and Analysis. According to a source within the institution, there were also unsuccessful attempts to breach the server at the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Colorado. A US diplomatic cable that WikiLeaks released in late 2010 also revealed "evidence of an attempt to gain unauthorized entry to computer systems" belonging to the State Department's climate bureau in 2009. The cable warned that "as negotiations on the subject of climate change continue, it is probable intrusion attempts such as this will persist."

Doubt as a tactic of climate skeptics

Those who oppose action on global warming, such as Glenn Beck at Fox News, have called the incident Climategate and argue that it disproves global warming. Former vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin called for independent investigations into the e-mails, a delay in U.S. Environmental Protection Agency regulation of greenhouse gases, and outright boycotts of the Copenhagen international climate talks.

As noted in David Michael’s Doubt Is Their Product, those opposing government regulation often deliberately cast certainty as the standard for regulatory action, a standard that is often impossible to establish, while simultaneously manufacturing uncertainty to dismiss scientific research and write off corporate regulations as unnecessary.

The issue has attracted the attention of some in the congressional minority.For example, Republican Senator James Inhofe called for an investigation on November 24, 2009. Inhofe asserted that the IPCC and the UN "cooked the science to make this thing look as if the science was settled, when all the time of course we knew it was not." The Ranking Member of the House Select Committee for Energy Independence and Global Warming, Republican James Sensenbrenner also declared he would attend the Copenhagen conference on climate change to tell world leaders that regardless of President Obama's promises no more laws would be passed in the U.S. so long as "scientific fascism" persists. Sensenbrenner also wrote Dr. Rajendra Pachauri, leader of the IPCC, demanding that those found to have manipulated climate change data should not be allowed to participate in U.N. reports.

Foxgate

On December 15, 2010, MediaMatters released a Dec. 8, 2009 e-mail sent by Fox News Washington managing editor Bill Sammon stating "we should refrain from asserting that the planet has warmed (or cooled) in any given period without IMMEDIATELY pointing out that such theories are based upon data that critics have called into question. It is not our place as journalists to assert such notions as facts, especially as this debate intensifies." The email was sent less than 15 minutes after Fox correspondent Wendell Goler reported on-air that the United Nations’ World Meteorological Organization announced that 2000-2009 was "on track to be the warmest [decade] on record.”

That night’s Special Report with Bret Baier – Fox’s flagship news program — featured another report by Goler on the Copenhagen conference. Anchor Bret Baier introduced the report by saying that as “‘climategate-fueled skeptics continued to impugn global warming science, researchers today issued new and even more dire warnings about the possible effects of a warmer planet.” Goler’s report featured a clip of Michel Jarraud of the World Meteorological Association explaining the recent finding that 2000-2009 “is likely to be the warmest on the record.” Appearing to echo Sammon’s orders, Goler immediately followed this by saying that climate skeptics "say the recordkeeping began about the time a cold period was ending in the mid 1800s and what looks like an increase may just be part of a longer cycle.” After running a clip of American Enterprise Institute scholar Kenneth Green questioning the “historical context” of the WMO’s climate findings, Goler then brought up the climategate emails, saying the "e-mails cast doubt on the basic scientific message."

Later that night, on the same Special Report broadcast, correspondent James Rosen advanced the wildly misleading claim that climate scientists “destroyed more than 150 years worth of raw climate data.” A month after Sammon sent his memo, NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies released data confirming that 2009 was the second warmest year on record and marked the end of the warmest decade on record. Special Report never mentioned the NASA report.

Skepticgate

Pat Michaels admits: '40 percent' of funding comes from big oil

On January 25, 2011, Rep. Henry Waxman sent a letter to Rep. Fred Upton seeking to call in global warming denier Pat Michaels for questioning about his science and funding. In the letter, Waxman wrote that Pat Michaels testified before the Energy and Commerce Committee in February 2009 "that widely accepted scientific data had 'overestimated' global warming and that regulation enacted in response to that data could have 'a very counterproductive effect.' Among the scientists who testified before this Committee on the issue of climate change in the last Congress, Pat Michaels was the only one to dismiss the need to act on climate change ... Dr. Michaels may have provided misleading information about the sources of his funding and his ties to industries opposed to regulation of emissions responsible for climate change."

With his 2009 testimony, Pat Michaels submitted a CV including his sources of funding to the Committee. He listed a small number of corporate grants. These sources of income amounted to a small percentage of his income, and failed to list multiple large payments to New Hope Environmental Services, Pat Michaels' private enterprise, which has published the climate denial publication, World Climate Report dating back to 1995. New Hope's website says it is "an advocacy science consulting firm that produces cutting-edge research and informed commentary on the nature of climate, including patterns of climate change, U.S. and international environmental policy, seasonal and long-range forecasting targeted to user needs, and the relation between the earth's atmosphere and biology. The company also consults on legal matters related to weather and climate." In 2006, it was revealed that energy and coal fired utility interests were funding Pat Michaels.

In a 2007 Vermont lawsuit where Pat Michaels was an expert witness for auto interests suing the state to stop stricter vehicle greenhouse emissions standards, he submitted an affidavit stating that New Hope Environmental Services is a vital source of income for him and other scientists: "Besides modest speaking fees, New Hope is my sole source of income beyond a negotiated retirement package from the University of Virginia." In August 2010, Pat Michaels stated on CNN under direct questioning that he gets 40% of his funding from the oil industry.

Over the course of his career, Michaels has used the titles Virginia State Climatologist (later stripped of that title by the Governor), Senior fellow at the Koch-founded and funded Cato Institute, and a visiting scientist at the George Marshall Institute, among other groups. Cato Institute was co-founded by Charles Koch and David Koch sits on the board. Upton has yet to respond to Waxman's request for questioning.

Academic Investigations

The controversy also spurred some calls for academic investigations:

Pennsylvania State University, Michael Mann

On November 31, 2009, the Pennsylvania State University announced an inquiry into the potential misconduct of Michael Mann, director of its Earth System Science Center. The inquiry decided he had not directly or indirectly falsified research data.

However, on February 3, 2010, the inquiry moved into the 'investigatory stage' following the determination that additional investigation was needed for one of the four allegations of impropriety and to determine whether his actions had caused public doubt about his scientific findings A Penn State student groups protested the exoneration of Professor Mann, asserting that three panel members had incentive to protect the university's funding and had not examined the evidence while relying primarily on Mann's own statements.

In April 2010, the National Science Foundation asked its Inspector General to examine Penn State's findings findings.

(Mann, creator of the famous 'hockey stick' graph showing evidence of Global Warming for the past 900 years, received $2.4 million in Stimulus Money due to his grants from the National Science Foundation, as reported in January 2010 by the Wall Street Journal.)

University of East Anglia, Phil Jones

On December 1, 2009, the University of East Anglia similarly announced an investigation into Phil Jones, its director of Climate Research. Jones stepped down from his post in December, but the House of Commons Science and Technology Committee (U.K.) in March declared accusations against him "largely misplaced" and has since supported his reinstatement.

The report stated:

"We are content that the phrases such as 'trick' or 'hiding the decline' were colloquial terms used in private e-mails and the balance of evidence is that they were not part of a systematic attempt to mislead... We saw no evidence of any deliberate scientific malpractice in any of the work of the Climatic Research Unit and had it been there we believe that it is likely that we would have detected it. Rather we found a small group of dedicated if slightly disorganised researchers who were ill-prepared for being the focus of public attention."

State of Virginia Investigation

In April 2010 Virginia's Republican Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli asked the University of Virginia to produce "documents relating to [Michael] Mann’s receipt of nearly half a million dollars in state grant-funded climate research" conducted from 1999-2005, when Professor Mann was employed by the university. This investigation has been called a political "witchhunt."

More Freedom of Information Act Requests

In May 2010, Christopher Horner, following his previous Freedom of Information Act request three years ago, stated that he would file a lawsuit against NASA for release of potential 'Climategate' emails. Horner asserted that NASA might be withholding them long enough to prevent their impact on an upcoming Senate debate on climate change.

U.S. Polling and Public Perception

Following the controversy surrounding these emails, Gallup polling showed a sharp increase in the percent of Americans questioning climate change and in particular expressing skepticism about climate change.

Gallup: Thinking about what is said in the news, in your view is the seriousness of global warming -- (ROTATED: generally exaggerated, generally correct, or is it generally underestimated)?

Global Warming Poll	1997	2001	2002	2003	2004	2005	2006	2007	2008	2009	2010
Generally exaggerated	31%	30%	31%	33%	38%	31%	30%	33%	35%	41%	48%
Generally correct	34%	34%	32%	29%	25%	29%	28%	29%	33%	29%	24%
Generally underestimated	27%	32%	32%	33%	33%	35%	38%	35%	29%	28%	25%

Rasmussen found a similar drop-off in public belief that Global Warming is caused by human activity.

Rasmussen: Global Warming is Primarily Caused By:

Date	Human Activity	Planetary Trends	Other Reason
April 2010	33%	48%	11%
March 2010	33%	48%	8%
February 2010	35%	47%	8%
January 2010	37%	50%	5%
December 2009	34%	50%	6%
November 2009	37%	47%	5%
October 2009	38%	46%	3%
September 2009	42%	47%	5%
July 2009	39%	44%	6%
June 2009	42%	40%	10%
May 2009	39%	44%	7%
April 2009	34%	48%	7%
March 2009	41%	43%	7%
February 2009	38%	45%	7%
January 2009	44%	41%	7%
December 2008	43%	43%	6%
April 2008	47%	44%	8%

Articles and resources

Related SourceWatch articles

• American Petroleum Institute
• Global Warming
• Philip Morris
• Global warming skeptics
• Data Quality Act
• Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change
• Copenhagen Climate Council
• Climate change skeptics/common claims and rebuttal
• Jim Tozzi

External resources

• "The disclosure of climate data from the Climatic Research Unit at the University of East Anglia", House of Commons Science and Technology Committee, March 24, 2010.
• List of submissions to UK Parliamentary Enquiry http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200910/cmselect/cmsctech/387b/387we01.htm
• John Cook (2010-07-09). What do the 'Climategate' hacked CRU emails tell us?. SkepticalScience. Retrieved on 2010-12-08.

External articles

• Kate Sheppard, "Climategate: What Really Happened?" Mother Jones, April 21, 2011

• Stewart Fist, "The Sound Science Coalition", 2000?

• "The disclosure of climate data from the Climatic Research Unit at the University of East Anglia", House of Commons Science and Technology Committee, March 24, 2010.

• "Environmental Financial Advisory Board Newsletter: March 2002", Environmental Protection Agency,

• "Jim Tozzi, Center for Regulatory Effectiveness", FederalTimes.com, November 11, 2002

• "Jim Tozzi: On Jazz And OMB", The Federal Paper, November 18, 2002

• "Steven J. Milloy: The “Junkman” Exposed", Americans for Nonsmokers' Rights, December 2003

• Chris Mooney , "Paralysis by Analysis, Jim Tozzi's regulation to end all regulation", Washington Monthly, May 2004

• Rick Weiss, "'Data Quality' Law Is Nemesis Of Regulation," Washington Post, August 16, 2004.

• Eric Bailey, "Activist Enlists Unlikely Ally in Bid to Legalize Pot," Los Angeles Times, July 18, 2005.

• Sharon Begley, "The Truth About ‘Climategate’", NewsWeek, December 5, 2009.

• John M. Broder, "Past Decade Warmest on Record, NASA Data Shows", New York Times, January 21, 2010.