Sometimes connecting the dots does not make for a pretty picture.  Around November 20 the public learned of hundreds of leaked e-mails from the prestigious Climate Research Unit (CRU) at the University of East Anglia.  Among the e-mails was the following communication from Phil Jones, Director of Climatic Research at CRU, to the American climatologist Michael Mann:

The two MMs have been after the CRU station data for years. If they ever hear there is a Freedom of Information Act now in the U.K., I think I’ll delete the file rather than send to anyone. . . . We also have a data protection act, which I will hide behind.

The “two MMs” are almost certainly Canadians Stephen McIntyre and Ross McKitrick, two leading critics of anthropogenic (human-made) climate-change theory.  McIntyre, through his web site www.climateaudit.org , discredited Mann’s famous “hockey stick” graph, which showed the last five decades  before 1999 to be by far the hottest in the last thousand years — hence the hockey-stick shape of the upward-sloping line.  Mann had refused to share the data behind his hockey stick, but McIntyre obtained the information indirectly from other sources.  For the full story, read here.

In the above e-mail, “station data” refers to weather stations around the world that measure global temperatures.  Jones reveals here that he was prepared to delete the data, and thus commit a felony, rather than share them with McIntyre and McKitrick.  Needless to say, this is not proper behavior for a scientist, whose work is supposed to be available for retesting.  And it begs the question:  What is in these data that is so sensitive?

On November 25 some interesting but little reported climate news appeared from down under. The New Zealand Climate Conversation Group and the New Zealand Climate Science Coalition downloaded all of the available climate data for New Zealand. First, here is the official graph of New Zealand’s temperature history that reflects data used by Jones and the CRU:

But when New Zealand’s skeptical scientists graphed all of the available data, they allege that the true picture looks like this:

The official version used in climate models at the CRU is based, they say, on selective data. The complete data set, found in their study, shows remarkably stable temperatures since 1850.

According to the skeptical scientists who discovered this alleged New Zealand temperature cherry picking, all of the data are public information available for download.  If anyone would like to try this at home, we’d be happy to publish your findings here at CenterMovement.org.

The CRU e-mails, and perhaps the New Zealand story as well, seem to have prompted a similar reexamination in Russia.  One week and a half ago the Moscow-based Institute for Economic Analysis (IEA) issued a statement charging that the Hadley Center for Climate Change in the UK, which is closely affiliated with CRU, had been selectively choosing ground-temperature data taken from weather stations around Russia. The IEA says that the Hadley Center cherry-picked temperature readings from only 25% of Russia’s weather stations, and left 40% of Russian territory completely unaccounted for in their findings. Sites selected tended to be from urban areas, which climate skeptics argue are thermal islands and as such not necessary indicative of warming that is global in scope. Data from sites in remote Siberia were ignored, says the IEA. When all of the data are included, the IEA finds that there was no appreciable global warming in Russia during the last half of the 20th Century and the first decade of the 21st Century. Here, on Google, is the only translation of the Russian document currently available. [It is rough but mostly comprehensible. See the December 15 post on the IEA site.]

Russia comprises 12.5% of the world’s landmass. This is no small sample. If global warming has not occurred in Russia during the last half century, such a finding would be significant all by itself.  One climate skeptic, writing under the name of “Lucy Skywalker” at McIntyre’s site, has long been saying that Siberian temperature readings show no increase in ground temperatures over the course of the past fifty years. Now here comes the Russian IEA accusation backing Skywalker’s claim.

For years climate skeptics have argued that atmospheric-temperature measurements are more accurate than ground-based measurements. If the IEA and the skeptical New Zealand scientists are correct, then it turns out that even the heretofore accepted land-based measures are themselves unrepresentative of overall ground temperatures because they have been selectively chosen, with inconvenient data left out.

Significantly, the institution being accused of cherry picking data in support of preconceived conclusions includes the prestigious Hadley Center for Climate Change, arguably the leading brain trust of its kind in the world. The Hadley Center is responsible for many of the computer models that undergird human-made global-warming theory. If the Hadley Center is found to be corrupt, those models may all be compromised.

If global warming is real, the charges of the skeptics cannot continue to go unanswered.  Only 36% of Americans believe in anthropogenic global warming, and that was before the CRU revelations.   The argument that the science is settled increasingly looks like intellectual cowardice and dishonesty.  There must be an open debate with all questions on the table.  Assuming that global warming is real, there will be insufficient political will do what is necessary until the skeptics’ arguments are met by their opponents, refuted and thoroughly defeated.

If anthropogenic global-warming theory turns out to be based on junk science and eco-religion, then public confidence in science will suffer.  Environmentalism, in all of its other healthy and helpful forms, will be severely compromised.   Proving the integrity of global temperature data, or correcting any mistakes, ought now to be the critical mission of those who care most about the earth. 

What’s in these emails? The Wall Street Journal lets them speak for themselves in an opinion piece “Climate Change and Candor”. The Washington Post, in deciding to editorialize and summarize says the exposed e-mails “reveal an intellectual circle that appears to feel very much under attack and eager to punish its enemies.” George Monbiot’s indictment in the Guardian is even more severe:

“There appears to be evidence here of attempts to prevent scientific data from being released, and even to destroy material that was subject to a freedom of information request. Worse still, some of the emails suggest efforts to prevent the publication of work by climate skeptics, or to keep it out of a report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. I believe that the head of the unit, Phil Jones, should now resign. Some of the data discussed in the emails should be re-analysed.”

These allegations are quite disturbing, because they cast doubt over the state and the integrity of the “scientific research” that supports most of what the public has been told about climate change, in our schools, in our media and by the actions of our government. While people generally skeptical of the climate-change pronouncements feel vindicated by this revelation, some of the public who have endorsed the global warming narrative are shocked.

Evidence that politics has trumped science at one influential institution will only deepen public doubts about the human role in climate change. Is the politicized science at the Climate Research Unit an isolated incident in an otherwise clean body of research indicating human causes for climate change? Or are the leaked e-mails merely the tip of an iceberg, an indicator of a great mass of bad science driven by ideology? Have the skeptics been given a fair hearing? No matter where one stands in the climate debate, these questions need to be answered convincingly in order to garner the public’s support for responsible public policy.

It is critical that those who develop public policy have confidence that the scientific method has been applied without regard to personal biases or a favored narrative. Political influence can corrupt science from both the right and the left. During the George W. Bush Administration, it was alleged that passages in environmental reports were deleted if they supported the “wrong” position. It is a fact that EPA Director Christine Todd Whitman resigned because she would not agree to a new rule allowing large polluting plants to make major alterations without installing costly new pollution controls, presumably a politically motivated favor to the energy sector.

Science can only be advanced based on a strict adherence to rigorous debate, integrity of the scientific method and an honest and thorough review of both data and analysis. A review of the Climate Research Unit emails not only shows a contempt for those questioning the methodology of this scientific research, they also point to a potentially fraudulent practice of destroying data, and obstructing any number of Freedom of Information requests by various parties to secure the data. This is inconsistent with what scientific research should be all about.

The great advantage of the scientific method is that it is not prejudiced and the results obtained are repeatable. Most middle-school children who are introduced to the scientific method learn that the process starts with an observation about nature or the universe. A tentative hypothesis is developed based on what has been observed. Then predictions are made based on the hypothesis. Data and observations are collected in order to test the prediction and modify the hypothesis based on the actual results of the experiment or data collection. Hypothesis continue to be re-evaluated and data collected until there are no discrepancies between that which is hypothesized and that which is observed. Rather than adhere to the rigorous conventions of the scientific method, the leaked e-mails, reports the Wall Street Journal, show that “scientists appear to urge each other to present a ‘unified’ view on the theory of man-made climate change while discussing the importance of the ‘common cause’; to advise each other on how to smooth over data so as not to compromise the favored hypothesis; to discuss ways to keep opposing views out of leading journals; and to give tips on how to ‘hide the decline’ of temperature in certain inconvenient data.”

The public might reasonably question the “science” of man’s detrimental impact on global climate change. Have opposing views been carefully reviewed? Has the other side been given a fair shake? For example, Richard Lindzen, of MIT, has concluded, based on fifteen years worth of actual data “that the effect of carbon dioxide on temperature is small and …is having very little effect on the climate.” This information should get a full and unbiased review, open and publicly. So should the work of Steve McIntyre, a self-funded self-proclaimed researcher who, if his results are verified, demonstrates that the climate change books have been cooked. Are these two men quacks or sages? A complete, open and ideology-neutral examination of ALL views, the data supporting the views and the research methodology must be undertaken. It is inexplicable why the climate-change experts who “know” mankind is causing global warming would not welcome the opportunity to rebut the argument of the so-called nay-sayers. Ideological takeovers of professional journals smack of cowardice and insecurity and prevent the open competition of ideas that advance everyone’s theory.

In spite of the fact that Climategate serves arguably to enlighten the public of possible fraud used to justify trillions of dollars in new fees and taxes, this “scandal” may also have the “unintended” consequence of causing the public to forsake many good efforts to minimize carbon use, engage in sustainability efforts and continue to be good environmental stewards. No matter what the science ultimately indicates about man’s role in climate change, there must be continued vigilance against pollution threats to our water, our air, and our forests.

If man’s impact on global climate change is faux, we’ve committed unnecessary resources to a problem man cannot effect. If man’s impact on climate change is true, the loss of confidence from these shenanigans may delay very real and necessary steps that mankind must take to combat this serious problem. The call to action must be to find the truth of whether or not man significantly affects climate change and on the basis of what empirical evidence. No agreements based on faulty science should be accepted by the U.S. in Copenhagen.

In a speech discussing the need for better math and science education for our children, President Obama said,

“Because the truth is that promoting science isn’t just about providing resources, it’s about protecting free and open inquiry. It’s about ensuring that facts and evidence are never twisted or obscured by politics or ideology.”

The President is correct. The same standard must be demanded in the debate regarding climate change.