Apparently hackers broke into the servers of the University of East Anglias (UEA) Climatic Research Unit. There they found & published emails that documented how researchers deliberately manipulated climate change" data to hide the actual decline of the Earths temperatures. So ... is the only way to prove that a theory is not true is to show that it is false? What makes this highly significant is that according to UEAs website the Climatic Research Units data sets are widely used in climate research including the global temperature record used to monitor the state of the climate system."
The site also boasts that the Climatic Research Unit is widely recognised as one of the worlds leading institutions concerned with the study of natural and anthropogenic climate change."
At least they were.
According to the UK Telegraph Around 1000 emails and 3000 documents were stolen from UEA computers by hackers last week and uploaded on to a Russian server before circulating on websites run by climate change sceptics.
Some of the correspondence indicates that the manipulation of data was widespread among global warming researchers" said the Telegraph.
The hackers also published an anonymous note alongside the emails:
We feel that climate science is 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."
Amongst the gems released is one email from the Units director Phil Jones in 1999:Ive just completed Mikes Nature the science journal trick of adding in the real temps to each series for the last 20 years (ie from 1981 onwards) and from 1961 for Keiths to hide the decline."
Apparently the agenda is more important than the facts. Lord Nigel Lawson a Conservative politician and journalist and long-time critic of the science" used to justify radically reducing the carbon emissions of industrialized nations has called for a public inquiry into the Units practices. They should set up a public inquiry under someone who is totally respected and get to the truth" said Lawson. The UK Climategate scandal comes on the heels of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) suppressing a paper by Dr. Alan Carlin highly critical of the science" behind the global warming consensus". According to Carlins paper the EPAs Technical Support Document for Endangerment Analysis for Greenhouse Gas Emissions under the Clean Air Act (TSD) uses data that is out-of-date and ignores the decade-long decline in the earths temperature despite CO2 levels rising and CO2 emissions accelerating." The EPAs official findings Carlin reported are based largely on the International Panel on Climate Changes (IPCC) AR4 report published in 2007. That reports data according to Carlin is at best three years out of date in a rapidly changing field." Carlin wrote that the IPCC projections for large increases in temperature are looking increasingly doubtful" in light of recent substantial decreases in global temperatures". Making matters worse for the Hot Earthers the bulk of the data that has been used by the International Panel on Climate Change in its computer models projecting
climate change" has repeatedly (and conveniently) been destroyed.
And that data was compiled by none other than the UEAs Climatic Research Unit as was revealed by National Reviews Patrick J. Michaels in September. (For The Dog Ate Global Warming click here.)
In the real scientific field there is a principle called falsifiability" pioneered in 1963 by Karl Popper. It asserts that the criterion of the scientific status of a theory is its falsifiability or refutability or testability."
Therefore the only way to prove that a theory is not true is to show that it is false.
For example the only way fully reliable way to prove that all swans are not white is produce one that is black.
It is now clear to all that the folks at the Climatic Research Unit took a decidedly different slant on falsifiability." They decided that the only way to prove that their theory was true was simply to falsify the facts.
And in so doing they exposed themselves and their adherents to be nothing more than shameless frauds of the highest order.
Naturally that renders the Copenhagen Hot Earthers love fest a groundless exercise in contrived futilityunless of course they intend to falsify their findings there too.
Which is likely the precise protocol they have in mind.
The criterion of the scientific status of a theory is its falsifiability or refutability or testability.
--Karl Popper Science as Falsification 1963.
Karl Popper must be rolling over in his grave. Robert Romano is the ALG Senior News Editor.
