On December 6, 2009, Government representatives from 170 countries are expected to attend the Climate Conference in Copenhagen, Denmark to discuss a plan to cap carbon emissions and prevent catastrophic man-made global warming. The conference is a response to the coming expiration of the Kyoto Protocol in 2012 and steep international pressure to set binding targets for global greenhouse gas emissions.
However, a new scandal involving hacked-into emails between top climate scientists at the Climate Research Unit at East Anglia University in the United Kingdom threatens to change the dynamic at the summit. Some global warming skeptics even hope that the exposed information will derail the summit altogether.
Skeptics of anthropogenic climate change say these emails are filled with evidence of manipulated data from lead scientists behind the UN's highly influential IPCC reports.
The hacked emails contain correspondence dating back to 1996 between well-known climate scientists Michael Mann, James Hansen, Phil Jones, Michael Oppenheimer, Stephen Schneider and Kevin Trenberth.
Skeptics have largely focused in on emails sent by Phil Jones, director of the CRU at East Anglia, that talk about "tricks" that can be used to "hide the decline" in warming and refusal to accept or publish journal articles written by scientists with a dissenting view of anthropogenic global warming.
Sen. James Inhofe (R) of Oklahoma, a vocal skeptic of global warming, and other congressional Republicans began a probe this past week into the findings of the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), and whether contradictory data was suppressed in the research.
Taking a more level-headed approach is Megan McArdle, writer for The Atlantic, who says that "Climategate" doesn't prove that man-made global warming is a hoax, but it does show that the main computer model policymakers rely on to "estimate the costs of global warming" is "complete rubbish." That’s "a big problem," and until we figure out how big of a problem it really is, Obama should "probably hold off on policy recommendations."
On the other side of the argument, climate scientists Richard Somerville, Michael Mann and Eric Steig have called the releasing of the emails nothing more than a "smear campaign" aimed at sabotaging the December climate talks in Copenhagen.
"We're facing an effort by special interests who are trying to confuse the public," said Somerville.
His statement was part of a public conference at the release of a new report documenting the accelerating pace of climate change. The results reveal that global warming emissions in 2008 were around 40 percent higher than those in 1990. Additionally, sea level rise is 80 percent above past IPCC predictions.
"There's an urgency to this that is not politically or ideological driven," said Somerville. "This is objective scientific reality and we're running out of time (to stop the problem)."
The public debate over Climategate is likely to snowball over the week leading up to the climate conference in Copenhagen, but it is unknown whether it will have any effect on the outcome.
The only thing that is certain at this point is that skeptics have gotten their hands on an arsenal that could spell trouble for future efforts on regulating global greenhouse gas emissions. Whether or not it will be enough to derail the Copenhagen conference will be seen in due time.
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Comments
The data is way too complicated for a lay person like myself to evaluate and I trusted scientists like Richard Somerville, Michael Mann and Eric Steig to make the call. What I understand now is that they have been hiding and cheating on the data as well as the peer review system. For the tone of the emails I have read, nothing would surprise me now. They have totally lost my trust. Somerville is right in saying the public (like myself) are confused - all the old arguments have been reopened. I think they (the CRU team and associates) have only themselves to blame if Copenhagen is derailed.
Having said that, however, in the longer term, let's hope that we can get this back on track with broad scientific consensus as to what that might be. No more bickering! The world is too important for 'science' to cheat on it.
Yes cliamate change been a man made is a Hoax, it is been used to get corbon cap and trade tax to be pass to tax everyone al gore is a liar
If the frickin controlled corporate media would bother investigating it would completely derail the Copenhagen fraud. Of course, the media won't investigate or report because if they did it would lose their parent corporations billions of dollars invested into the whole carbon credit and green movement scam.
No reader here needs to be a climate scientist to understand why Climategate is the Copenhagen-killer the "deniers" claim it is.
To put it bluntly, a small number of climate researchers screwed the pooch more than 20 years ago. They made horrible errors in using worthless data (from which they cherry-picked only the most alarming bits), lousy computer programming, and generally screwed-up work habits to come (together) to a "The sky is falling!" conclusion, and they found - whoops! - that politicians and other professional liars thought that these particular slovenly scientists had stumbled over something that could successfully panic the voters.
For two decades now, these slobs have had control of the major data centers for climate information, and they've pretty much run the scientific literature in their field, squeezing out honest, scrupulous climatologists who've been trying to error-check their work.
These guys - Jones, Mann, Trenberth, et alia - are simply criminal fr
Well for all those that still want to say that Climategate doesn't upset the AGW/Climate Change apple cart because there is all that other "science" done on it, they need to go look up the 2006 Wegman Report for the US Congress. To summerize it: These clowns are more inbred then a Ozark Hillbilly Clan. They just keep citing each others papers over and over. They play musical chairs in writing thaose papers with each other and have the rest peer review it.
And Martin it ain't that hard to understand, that it's too complicated crap, is just that crap. How hard is it to understand that for the lat 10 years there has been no warming and CO2 has been rising. If that wasn't enouhgh the temps fell between 1940 to roughly 1975 and CO2 was rising then. Of course AL Gore glossed over that inconvient fact. Their models have always said that temps could not go down unless C)2 did put hey don't let reality interupt the AGW fantasy world.
The only deniers that exist are the Medieval Warming Period deniers. It was real, it really happened as part of a weather cycle, and the world's coasts did not go underwater.
Warmism , like the communism and fascism that preceeded it, will have its brief day in the sun but do untold economic damage along the way. Oh yeah, weren't the last govts which picked"winners" communists, and look where it got them. Cap and Trade is the reverse of economic sense. It is a trade in something invisble which nobody wants. If there was ever any doubt that the majority of politicians were morons, this is it.
I would really like to see the EPA-OBD II Annual Vehicle Emissions Inspection Law closely examined and changed.As it stands right now, it is entirely possible for any Gasoline powered Vehicle from 1996 to the present to fail it's Emissions Inspection for not emitting enough polluting Exhaust Emissions ! All such Vehicles have on board Oxygen [O2] Exhaust Sensors.These O2 Sensors are set up to detect a level of polluting Exhaust Emissions that would indicate that Gasoline is being consumed by an Engine at 14.7 parts of Air to 1 part of Fuel.If there is a low level of Oxygen, and a high level of Pollution, a Vehicle will fail it's Emissions Inspection as well it should.But Gasoline can be safely vaporized into a mixture that is 100 parts of Air to 1 part of Fuel.With this, even the largest SUV could easily get 50 + MPG and emit a fraction of the Emissions of a conventional 14.7/1 Fuel System, with an increase in Power,and much longer Engine life.Not one EvironMENTAList will admit to it!
People are confusing 'Climate' with 'Environment' True, we need to do things to limit our destruction of the environment. Cap and trade is not a solution of anything. It does not limit our destruction of the environment. Destroy these Co2 asshats, they have had their time. Lets get down to the real environmental problems we face instead of throwing billions after shady computer models and a supposed 'insurance' on the climate. (an insurance with no pay out mind you)
Gary Kirkland says: But Gasoline can be safely vaporized into a mixture that is 100 parts of Air to 1 part of Fuel.With this, even the largest SUV could easily get 50 + MPG and emit a fraction of the Emissions of a conventional 14.7/1 Fuel System, with an increase in Power,and much longer Engine life.Not one EvironMENTAList will admit to it!
You are talking absolute rubbish. No car maker has ever managed to design an engine that can tolerate mixtures leaner than 25:1. No production engine has run leaner than 22:1. Lean burn engines are incompatible with catalytic converters and are prone to knocking and burnt out valves. You have absolutely no understanding of chemistry or physics if you think running very lean fuel:air mixtures will drastically improve fuel economy. The maximum theoretical gains are only in the order of 10-20%
Why would it threaten copout-hagen.. it never was about warming anyway.. GW Bush started a war with faulty intel.. The left not to be out done started their own war on faulty intel.. Both intended to take over the world.. Both tried my making up the reasons.. Its so friggen sad that our society and economy has slid so far under their watch..
"The data is way too complicated for a lay person like myself to evaluate and I trusted scientists... Having said that, however, in the longer term, let's hope that we can get this back on track."
Stupid is as stupid does. If you think you can sit back and let "scientists" do the thinking for you, then you deserve the totalitarian state they are preparing for you. Only suckers let others think for them.
Just keep hoping your emotional investment in global warming comes true and that "they" can think better than you. The new butchers of the world are banking on it.
Weatherman writes: "If there was ever any doubt that the majority of politicians were morons, this is it."
Quite the opposite - the politicians are cunning, and there is major money to be had in this windmill-tilting. They're not morons - they're counting on THE REST OF US being morons and blindly believing them and the scientists, so they can pass the legislation, get the monies lined up, and ride off in the sunset.
I believe the Copenhagen Treaty Summit should be cancelled! How in God's name can this be considered a legal agreement when a Huge Amount of the basis for the Climate Change Data has been found to be Fraudulently Sabotaged and absolutely Inaccurate? This is signing an agreement Document that has no Legal Foundation of Realistic conditions or elements due to inaccurate and Manipulated Data as described and therefore, anything stated on this Copenhagen Treaty Document should be considered Null and Void! Why create a Pandora's Box, subject to Lawsuits and Misgivings due to total inaccuracy of Scientific measurements? Which now is proving to be the case! This Treaty has no Legal ground to stand on and is and will be a False Document from day one!
Any lawyers want to help out by filing this Copenhagen Treaty be classified as an illegal Treaty!
For Canadians go to: gotopetition.com32485.html
The leaking of the e-mails about the data showing a temperature rise was faked and the barring of publication freedom for those scientists who were not convinced about manmade global warming should give great pause to those politicians who vote on the treaty issue. There is also evidence that the scientific effort of proving global warming over history through the tree ring study also used cherry picked information to arrive at their conclusions. There seems to be a concerted effort to arrive at a pre-conceived end. This is not science, it is a sham perpetrated upon the public that is used to trusting scientists to give them the truth. Trust lost is hard to regain, these people have jeopardized trust for all scientists. What else do we not know because the truth is being withheld?
"Trust but verify." a quote from Ronald Reagan. Now the phrase should be "Trust Nothing, Verify First."
There is nothing contradictory about being an environmentalist and being skeptical about CO2 causing Climate Change.
What CRU have done is bad science. It makes no difference whether you are a Believer or Denier. Bad science is bad science.
The problem with CRU's bad science is that CRU are primary contributors to IPCC and which Copenhagen is driven by.
As an environmentalist myself, I say we need to get the science right first. Not by Believers peer-reviewing themselves but by open and genuine peer-reviews.
Dead nuts on Tucci !
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