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Climate science document hacked

47 points by danut 17y ago

tome 17y ago
These people have acquired millions if not billions of taxpayers' money Millions I can imagine. That's several peoples salaries over several years. But billions? Surely he shouldn't be making such an extreme claim without detailing how he thinks that value is broken down. It seems obviously nonsense just by rough order of magnitude estimates.
- electromagnetic 17y ago
  Agreed, what these people have currently taken is likely only in the millions, maybe tens-of-millions. However the UK government has pledged to essentially 'do whatever it takes' to combat global warming, which the governments 'own' (IE private company they paid) estimates state that combating global warming will require billions of pounds for the UK alone.
- viggity 17y ago
  Directly it may only be in the millions, but think about how many research assistants that they've had, plus all of their computer equipment, plus the money it takes for their offices/labs, plus the conferences they go to. Billions might be off, but tens or hundreds of millions seems reasonable. I also think the author is grouping in a lot of extra climate scientists in with this group, which isn't technically fair but I personally don't think it is so unreasonable to think that this is a somewhat common practice in any collegiate research (let alone climate research). You can't get grant money if you don't show results. I think the one area where you'd have less of this influence is academic medical research - because double blind studies is a standard practice in that field.
  - tome 17y ago
    You can hardly accuse people of the theft of millions or billions if what they've done with it is buy research equipment and fund conferences. They've appropriated it for their own ends, sure. But that's what academia everywhere does without having to give much of a justification.
    - dantheman 17y ago
      If you lie/commit fraud to receive something it's theft. If they data was honestly misinterpreted then of course it's not, it's just a mistake. Also, this has nothing to do with current case, I haven't looked at it so I don't know what they did or did not do.
- rick888 17y ago
  "Millions I can imagine. That's several peoples salaries over several years. But billions? Surely he shouldn't be making such an extreme claim without detailing how he thinks that value is broken down. It seems obviously nonsense just by rough order of magnitude estimates." It will be billions if the new cap-and-trade bill gets pushed through congress. I might be more inclined to believe that global warming is man-made if: 1) There weren't so many companies and governments trying to enforce carbon credits, which means more money out of my pockets. 2) It didn't seem like a religion, where science goes out the door and man-made global warming skeptics weren't ignored and demonized. Also, why the change to global "climate change"? I thought we were warming?
- te_platt 17y ago
  Does he mean climate scientists in general or Hadley Climate Research Unit specifically? Or some mix? From http://www.opinionjournal.com/extra/?id=110008220 http://www.opinionjournal.com/extra/?id=110008220: "Indeed, the success of climate alarmism can be counted in the increased federal spending on climate research from a few hundred million dollars pre-1990 to $1.7 billion today" Billions of taxpayers money is no exaggeration for the general case.
  - electromagnetic 17y ago
    Hadley is presently the only place where proof of tampering has emerged, which IMO casts serious doubt on any work emerging from Hadley if it cannot prove that its work is not being tampered with. IMHO I doubt this is an endemic problem in climate research, no matter how much I despise the many statisticians claiming they're scientists. Statisticians show correlations, scientists prove causation. However with literally billions of dollars on the table, it certainly makes me curious of the validity of other researchers work. With a $1.7B cake on the table, are people lying so that the host of the party (the federal government) gives them a slice?
    - gjm11 17y ago
      The snippets of emails I've seen that allegedly come from the Hadley archive do not, in fact, constitute "proof of tampering".
    - CWuestefeld 17y ago
      AIUI, Hadley is the origin of much of the baseline data that everyone else uses. And that data itself isn't just raw numbers, but is massaged to factor out the heat island effect, for example. The snippets of emails that I saw suggest (but don't prove, contrary to their opposition) that the methodology for building that baseline data was tainted. So if that underlying data must now be considered corrupt, then it also calls into question any other research that used the baseline data.
- fburnaby 17y ago
  When we're talking about how much money is involved with this research, and claiming it as an incentive for climate scientists to lie, we realize that this is money that's being spent on research right? Do we? There is no incentive for them to do anything other than get published, and this by no means requires any lying or forging of data. Please tell me we understand this fact. Nobody (that is, no scientists) is pocketing money and running here, they're spending this money on research gear and on hiring analysts and grad students and the like. Given this, how is the amount invested relevant at all?
  - anamax 17y ago
    > (that is, no scientists) is pocketing money and running here Are they getting paid? (If not, who is paying their living expenses?) Is it "money" only if it goes for hookers and booze? > There is no incentive for them to do anything other than get published, and this by no means requires any lying or forging of data. Scientists are people. Refereed journals only publish what the referees believe and what they find interesting. (There were the equivalent of refereed journals for ether, phrenology, eugenics, etc. and I suspect that there are still refereed journals for astrology.) Getting published may not require "lying or forging", but they can help in certain circumstances. So can being sloppy in the "correct way".
WilliamLP 17y ago
It's kind of amusing to see these guys froth at the mouth at the prospect of scouring through millions of lines of text to find a couple of scientists with less than absolutely pure motivations and research methods. When the witch-hunt succeeds, it of course invalidates everything we leftist propagandists try to convince the people that we know!! It's exactly parallel to creationists taking some instance of one scientist mistaking some fossil early in the century and milking that for decades to disprove evolution.
- mattmaroon 17y ago
  I'm just flagging it all and suggesting everyone else do the same. I don't know how global warming skepticism got so popular here, but it's at best way off-topic and at worst trolling.
  - jacquesm 17y ago
    It's only a few accounts that post almost all climate change 'skeptic' posts here.
  - DanielBMarkham 17y ago
    What? Weren't you here for the Ron Paul epidemic of 2008? I'd agree with you except 1) it's a story about server hacking, 2) it's a story about not only politics but science, and 3) there's been a long-term trend of posting climate articles on HN I get tired of being sucked into the political side of the debate -- no winners there -- but dang it, climate change science is a really fascinating topic from a purely intellectual standpoint. The Earth is not just a black body, and various carbon-based molecular absorption spectra is not the do-all, end-all metric that pop science writers say it is. CA programming has a default behavior of producing runaway models, as Wolfram so aptly points out in NKS. Lots of cool and tech-weenie stuff in here. (But also lots of emotion, so I concede that it ticks a lot of folks off. But 100% "Erlang Innards" is probably not going to happen any time soon)
    - youngian 17y ago
      I agree - it would be nice to be able to talk about these things in a healthy academic environment. Sadly, I think that's quite impossible at this point (at least in the U.S.). These scientists were out of line, but I can understand how they ended up there. The "drill baby drill" crowd pounces on every bit of academic debate and builds a little strawman to agree with them. "I think your model is flawed" becomes "global warming doesn't exist," and "what about the impact of the xxx effect" becomes "global warming doesn't exist" and "we're missing some data for this period" becomes "global warming doesn't exist." If every bit of your research gets twisted and misreported like this, it's easy to see why you would start talking about how to hide data and skew the facts to leave no room for doubt. Presenting a flawless, united, impenetrable front would seem like the only way to make any real progress. Not saying what they did was right, but the motivation is there.
te_platt 17y ago
Perhaps a better link here: http://www.sophos.com/blogs/gc/g/2009/11/20/hackers-steal-information-climate-research-unit/ http://www.sophos.com/blogs/gc/g/2009/11/20/hackers-steal-in...
adamcrowe 17y ago
Speaking of skepticism... Skeptics Handbook http://joannenova.com.au/global-warming http://joannenova.com.au/global-warming Skeptics Handbook II http://joannenova.com.au/2009/11/skeptics-handbook-ii-global-bullies-want-your-money/ http://joannenova.com.au/2009/11/skeptics-handbook-ii-global... It's always been about the science.
- vannevar 17y ago
  And god knows, good science always involves political cartoons and exclamation points. Spam.
nkurz 17y ago
Here's the question that interests me: how much is this information worth, and to whom? Who stole and published this information, and why? Given the amount of money in play here, the value of this release to certain parties is enormous. What would a multinational oil company be willing to pay to derail Copenhagen? What would the Chinese government pay to avoid being subject to global CO2 emissions rules down the road? While this is probably an inside job by a disgruntled IT worker, if this was a paid job the value delivered is truly enormous: definitely hundreds of millions of dollars, and conceivably much more. Is there any level of data security that can protect against such a large incentive?

47 points by danut 17y ago

tome 17y ago

These people have acquired millions if not billions of taxpayers' money Millions I can imagine. That's several peoples salaries over several years. But billions? Surely he shouldn't be making such an extreme claim without detailing how he thinks that value is broken down. It seems obviously nonsense just by rough order of magnitude estimates.

electromagnetic 17y ago
Agreed, what these people have currently taken is likely only in the millions, maybe tens-of-millions. However the UK government has pledged to essentially 'do whatever it takes' to combat global warming, which the governments 'own' (IE private company they paid) estimates state that combating global warming will require billions of pounds for the UK alone.
viggity 17y ago
Directly it may only be in the millions, but think about how many research assistants that they've had, plus all of their computer equipment, plus the money it takes for their offices/labs, plus the conferences they go to. Billions might be off, but tens or hundreds of millions seems reasonable. I also think the author is grouping in a lot of extra climate scientists in with this group, which isn't technically fair but I personally don't think it is so unreasonable to think that this is a somewhat common practice in any collegiate research (let alone climate research). You can't get grant money if you don't show results. I think the one area where you'd have less of this influence is academic medical research - because double blind studies is a standard practice in that field.
- tome 17y ago
  You can hardly accuse people of the theft of millions or billions if what they've done with it is buy research equipment and fund conferences. They've appropriated it for their own ends, sure. But that's what academia everywhere does without having to give much of a justification.
  - dantheman 17y ago
    If you lie/commit fraud to receive something it's theft. If they data was honestly misinterpreted then of course it's not, it's just a mistake. Also, this has nothing to do with current case, I haven't looked at it so I don't know what they did or did not do.
rick888 17y ago
"Millions I can imagine. That's several peoples salaries over several years. But billions? Surely he shouldn't be making such an extreme claim without detailing how he thinks that value is broken down. It seems obviously nonsense just by rough order of magnitude estimates." It will be billions if the new cap-and-trade bill gets pushed through congress. I might be more inclined to believe that global warming is man-made if: 1) There weren't so many companies and governments trying to enforce carbon credits, which means more money out of my pockets. 2) It didn't seem like a religion, where science goes out the door and man-made global warming skeptics weren't ignored and demonized. Also, why the change to global "climate change"? I thought we were warming?
te_platt 17y ago
Does he mean climate scientists in general or Hadley Climate Research Unit specifically? Or some mix? From http://www.opinionjournal.com/extra/?id=110008220 http://www.opinionjournal.com/extra/?id=110008220: "Indeed, the success of climate alarmism can be counted in the increased federal spending on climate research from a few hundred million dollars pre-1990 to $1.7 billion today" Billions of taxpayers money is no exaggeration for the general case.
- electromagnetic 17y ago
  Hadley is presently the only place where proof of tampering has emerged, which IMO casts serious doubt on any work emerging from Hadley if it cannot prove that its work is not being tampered with. IMHO I doubt this is an endemic problem in climate research, no matter how much I despise the many statisticians claiming they're scientists. Statisticians show correlations, scientists prove causation. However with literally billions of dollars on the table, it certainly makes me curious of the validity of other researchers work. With a $1.7B cake on the table, are people lying so that the host of the party (the federal government) gives them a slice?
  - gjm11 17y ago
    The snippets of emails I've seen that allegedly come from the Hadley archive do not, in fact, constitute "proof of tampering".
  - CWuestefeld 17y ago
    AIUI, Hadley is the origin of much of the baseline data that everyone else uses. And that data itself isn't just raw numbers, but is massaged to factor out the heat island effect, for example. The snippets of emails that I saw suggest (but don't prove, contrary to their opposition) that the methodology for building that baseline data was tainted. So if that underlying data must now be considered corrupt, then it also calls into question any other research that used the baseline data.
fburnaby 17y ago
When we're talking about how much money is involved with this research, and claiming it as an incentive for climate scientists to lie, we realize that this is money that's being spent on research right? Do we? There is no incentive for them to do anything other than get published, and this by no means requires any lying or forging of data. Please tell me we understand this fact. Nobody (that is, no scientists) is pocketing money and running here, they're spending this money on research gear and on hiring analysts and grad students and the like. Given this, how is the amount invested relevant at all?
- anamax 17y ago
  > (that is, no scientists) is pocketing money and running here Are they getting paid? (If not, who is paying their living expenses?) Is it "money" only if it goes for hookers and booze? > There is no incentive for them to do anything other than get published, and this by no means requires any lying or forging of data. Scientists are people. Refereed journals only publish what the referees believe and what they find interesting. (There were the equivalent of refereed journals for ether, phrenology, eugenics, etc. and I suspect that there are still refereed journals for astrology.) Getting published may not require "lying or forging", but they can help in certain circumstances. So can being sloppy in the "correct way".

WilliamLP 17y ago

It's kind of amusing to see these guys froth at the mouth at the prospect of scouring through millions of lines of text to find a couple of scientists with less than absolutely pure motivations and research methods. When the witch-hunt succeeds, it of course invalidates everything we leftist propagandists try to convince the people that we know!! It's exactly parallel to creationists taking some instance of one scientist mistaking some fossil early in the century and milking that for decades to disprove evolution.

mattmaroon 17y ago
I'm just flagging it all and suggesting everyone else do the same. I don't know how global warming skepticism got so popular here, but it's at best way off-topic and at worst trolling.
- jacquesm 17y ago
  It's only a few accounts that post almost all climate change 'skeptic' posts here.
- DanielBMarkham 17y ago
  What? Weren't you here for the Ron Paul epidemic of 2008? I'd agree with you except 1) it's a story about server hacking, 2) it's a story about not only politics but science, and 3) there's been a long-term trend of posting climate articles on HN I get tired of being sucked into the political side of the debate -- no winners there -- but dang it, climate change science is a really fascinating topic from a purely intellectual standpoint. The Earth is not just a black body, and various carbon-based molecular absorption spectra is not the do-all, end-all metric that pop science writers say it is. CA programming has a default behavior of producing runaway models, as Wolfram so aptly points out in NKS. Lots of cool and tech-weenie stuff in here. (But also lots of emotion, so I concede that it ticks a lot of folks off. But 100% "Erlang Innards" is probably not going to happen any time soon)
  - youngian 17y ago
    I agree - it would be nice to be able to talk about these things in a healthy academic environment. Sadly, I think that's quite impossible at this point (at least in the U.S.). These scientists were out of line, but I can understand how they ended up there. The "drill baby drill" crowd pounces on every bit of academic debate and builds a little strawman to agree with them. "I think your model is flawed" becomes "global warming doesn't exist," and "what about the impact of the xxx effect" becomes "global warming doesn't exist" and "we're missing some data for this period" becomes "global warming doesn't exist." If every bit of your research gets twisted and misreported like this, it's easy to see why you would start talking about how to hide data and skew the facts to leave no room for doubt. Presenting a flawless, united, impenetrable front would seem like the only way to make any real progress. Not saying what they did was right, but the motivation is there.

te_platt 17y ago

Perhaps a better link here: http://www.sophos.com/blogs/gc/g/2009/11/20/hackers-steal-information-climate-research-unit/ http://www.sophos.com/blogs/gc/g/2009/11/20/hackers-steal-in...

adamcrowe 17y ago

Speaking of skepticism... Skeptics Handbook http://joannenova.com.au/global-warming http://joannenova.com.au/global-warming Skeptics Handbook II http://joannenova.com.au/2009/11/skeptics-handbook-ii-global-bullies-want-your-money/ http://joannenova.com.au/2009/11/skeptics-handbook-ii-global... It's always been about the science.

vannevar 17y ago
And god knows, good science always involves political cartoons and exclamation points. Spam.

nkurz 17y ago

Here's the question that interests me: how much is this information worth, and to whom? Who stole and published this information, and why? Given the amount of money in play here, the value of this release to certain parties is enormous. What would a multinational oil company be willing to pay to derail Copenhagen? What would the Chinese government pay to avoid being subject to global CO2 emissions rules down the road? While this is probably an inside job by a disgruntled IT worker, if this was a paid job the value delivered is truly enormous: definitely hundreds of millions of dollars, and conceivably much more. Is there any level of data security that can protect against such a large incentive?