Volume 1

The disclosure of climate data from the Climatic Research Unit at the University of East Anglia : eighth report of session 2009-10.

  • Great Britain. Parliament. House of Commons. Select Committee on Science and Technology
Date:
2010
Catalogue details

Licence: Open Government Licence

Credit: The disclosure of climate data from the Climatic Research Unit at the University of East Anglia : eighth report of session 2009-10. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    copied.? A UEA spokeswoman confirmed that the information was not available on a server that could be easily accessed and could not have been inadvertently released.’° It is not known exactly when the breach occurred; the RealClimate website, “a commentary site on climate science by working climate scientists for the interested public and journalists”,” indicated that UEA had been notified of the possible security breach on 17 November.’” The following was posted anonymously on the climate-sceptic blog, The Air Vent: November 17, 2009 at 9:57 pm 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.” From here the debate was “blown wide open”.'* The Guardian ran the story on 20 November with the headline: “Climate sceptics claim leaked e-mails are evidence of collusion among scientists”.!° 5. UEA issued a statement on 20 November: “This information has been obtained and published without our permission and we took immediate action to remove the server in question from operation. We are undertaking a thorough internal investigation and we have involved the police in this inquiry.”’* The e-mails contained technical and routine aspects of climate research, including data analysis and details of scientific conferences. The controversy has focused on a small number of e-mails, particularly those sent to, or written by, climatologist Professor Phil Jones, the Director of CRU. The aftermath 6. Condemnation of alleged malpractices found within the leaked CRU e-mails was quickly disseminated on the internet. Contributors to climate change debate websites and written submissions to us claimed that these e-mails showed a deliberate and systematic attempt by leading climate scientists to manipulate climate data, arbitrarily adjusting and “cherry- picking” data that supported their global warming claims and deleting adverse data that questioned their theories.” It was alleged that UEA may not have complied with the requirements of the Freedom of Information Act 2000, that inappropriate statistical methods and defective computer programmes may have been used to analyse data and that 9 RealClimate website archive, November 2009, www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2009/ 1/the-cru-hack 10 “Scotland Yard call in to probe climate data leak from UEA in Norwich”, Norwich Evening News, 1 December 2009 11. RealClimate website ‘about’ page, www.realclimate.org 12 RealClimate website archive, November 2009, www.realclimate.org/index. php/archives/2009/1 1/the-cru-hack; the data may have been downloaded on to the RealClimate—see paragraph 12. 13. The Air Vent website, November 2009 archive, noconsensus.wordpress.com/2009/1 1/page/3/ 14 As above 15 “Climate sceptics claim leaked emails are evidence of collusion among scientists”, The Guardian, 20 November 2009 16 “Sceptics publish climate e-mails ‘stolen from East Anglia University’”, The Times, 21 November 2009 17 For examples see Ev 85 [Roger Helmer MEP], Ev 92 [Godfrey Bloom MEP], and Ev 144 [Stephen Mcintyre]
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