According to yesterday’s London Telegraph (a go-to source for Climategate news), “Leading British scientists at the University of East Anglia, who were accused of manipulating climate change data – dubbed Climategate – have agreed to publish their figures in full.” The story continues:
The U-turn by the university follows a week of controversy after the emergence of hundreds of leaked emails, “stolen” by hackers and published online, triggered claims that the academics had massaged statistics.
In a statement welcomed by climate change sceptics, the university said it would make all the data accessible as soon as possible, once its Climatic Research Unit (CRU) had negotiated its release from a range of non-publication agreements.
Is it just me or does negotiating “a release from a range of non-publication agreements” sound like code for “after we make sure the data supports our position” or possibly “when hell freezes over?” Am I the only one who believes that these people would release falsified data?
Then today we learned that much of the raw data has been destroyed.
SCIENTISTS at the University of East Anglia (UEA) have admitted throwing away much of the raw temperature data on which their predictions of global warming are based.
It means that other academics are not able to check basic calculations said to show a long-term rise in temperature over the past 150 years.
The UEA’s Climatic Research Unit (CRU) was forced to reveal the loss following requests for the data under Freedom of Information legislation.
The data were gathered from weather stations around the world and then adjusted to take account of variables in the way they were collected. The revised figures were kept, but the originals — stored on paper and magnetic tape — were dumped to save space when the CRU moved to a new building.
Well, maybe it has or maybe it hasn’t been destroyed. How could we possibly know? Again, am I the only one who believes that these people would lie to avoid releasing their data?
Why should we believe them? These are people who apparently “improved the truth” to support their theory; withheld information requested under Freedom of Information laws; discussed destroying date to avoid releasing it; joked about the death of an inconvenient colleague and perverted the peer review process – and who knows what else.
These people are not worthy of my trust or anyone else’s, and certainly not to the point where we would cripple our economy on their say-so. Time to take a step back and let some real scientists get to work with full disclosure every step of the way.
it's only words 