jryan

That is an odd argument. If you were to point out a study that you wanted me to read would you not expect me to read it before dismissing it out of hand because you hadn't sufficiently prechewed it for me? Are we really that degenerate a sound ite culture that we can't be bothered to read an article in it's entirety anymore? My assertion is that the emails have broader implications than are encapsulated in a "hide the decline" soundbite... I could pick out all the emails in the article that point to my conclusion but I would then be writing the article again because it is all of them. In a court of law, if 1000 emails point to a specific conclusion that the prosecution or defense wants to make you had better believe that they would check them all into evidence and expect them all to be considered. Merged post follows: Consecutive posts merged I am not moving the goal posts, Swansnot, you are. I am not discussing cherry picked emails I am discussing tree full of cherries. I have given you my source, I asked you to read it, you dismissed it out of hand based on a cherry picked email that you are tired of hearing about which was never my assertion. Merged post follows: Consecutive posts merged I'm not asking to scrap the current models, per se. I believe the conclusions of the models are insufficient to the point of being in-actionable. If the changes in input due to new water vapor studies and CO2 sensitivity lead to models with greater predictive power (indeed, as science moves forward the disparate models should start looking more and more alike as they are all approaching the same truth) them the models will appear to be right on their contributors but wrong on the percentages.

No, Swansnot, it is you claiming that the temperatures over that same time scale haven't entered a decline or flattened. There arbitrary choice of 2000 to 2009 is no less arbitrary that the choice of 2003 to 2010... other than it is two years longer. and incorporates the end of a 20 year upward trend. In all cases it is like watching the temperature go from 40F to 60F between 6:00am and Noon and deducing the the temperature will be 100F by midnight. The article is what it is. It has determined that high atmosphere water (or the absence there of) has been a major contributor to the previous decade of warming, and as the high atmosphere vapor returns we are seeing a decrease in global temperatures. To simply say "well look it's still flat or slightly increased on average" is as disingenuous a retelling of the article as you claim mine is. The whole point of the article that an unexpected drop in water vapor by 10% contributed to the warming by as much as 30%. Your claim of a minor rise in the same time frame, one that is not readily apparent even on the 2000 to 2009 time scale still doesn't do service to the article itself. So yeah "<sigh>" away. But the point remains, CO2 was not as strong a contributor to the 2000-2009 warmth as once thought.. and if you and others can feel some importance in claiming "warmest decade" claims then you have to accept the importance of studies that actually discuss why it was the warmest decade... even if that study doesn't bow at the alter of CO2. This is a matter of statistics, Swansnot, otherwise there is no wiggle room in a given observation to extract the 30% to begin with. The total contribution of all forcings on climate can not be less than or exceed 100%... this 30% contribution by stratospheric water vapor an only subtract from what we already assumed were the given forcings in that period. That water vapor is an augmenter of climate is not what I am disputing, it is that the current model says that CO2 raises climate which in turn raises water vapor which raises energy retention (Louisiana -vs- Mojave daily osculation being a commonly used example) which raises CO2 which raises climate and so on. For the last decade the water vapor in the stratosphere decreased which contributed to warming. This is not what was the presumed function of vapor. It is interesting (for me anyway) to note that this finding does fall in line with the solar forcing model, however, as that model assumes a great deal of forcing resides in high stratosphere cloud production, which is presumed to be driven in part by vapor concentration and in part by cosmic rays. In that model a lowering of stratospheric vapor would lead to decreases in high atmosphere clouds, and lead to warming. At that same time we were also enveloped in the Sun's magnetic bubble, which also reduced the Earth's exposure to cosmic rays. Anyway, that aside, a 30% contribution that was not previously known can only expose what we thought we knew was wrong by... 30%. You can't increase climate forcings to 130% to accommodate this discovery.

No, it isn't linear, but it is your side claiming that henceforth it will be generally linear warming. We skeptics have always argued non-linearity, and the folly of picking trends from 30 years or even 150 years of data. To expand on your tortured analogy it is also foolish to assume someone will run fast because you can show they have feet.

Where has it limited CO2 use in any meaningful way? As you saw in my link, the CO2 per capita has remained constant or risen over the last 30 years. There may be annecdotes of people buying hybrids of carbon credits, or whatever, but that hasn't been reflected in usage in any meaningful way. The biggest reduction in US emissions was between 1975 and 1982, which was not an AGW driven reduction. Much of the first world have been reducing CO2 emissions even longer than that... and not as a matter of purposeful CO2 reduction but as a matter of byproduct. The UK has been trending down since before 1960, for instance. In cases of real increases such as China, I would be wary of long term predictions of Chinese development.. which is another discussion entirely. But as of 2005 (by that chart) the reduction in CO2 due to hysteria or otherwise is not present... if anything there was a reduction in per capita usage for economic reasons starting with the oil embargo on the 1970s, or a general trend toward efficiency before that. And I stand by that statement as I have shown there is little movement in per capita use in 30 years, so to double output we would therefore need to double population ... which we will not do in 20 to 30 years. But if we are talking about climate we are only tangentially talking about output anyway. What we are concerned about is atmospheric concentration... which we are far from doubling even one time in 150 years. How can you say that with no perceivable drop in per capita usage and, as you yourself say, a slight increase? Well sure it does. If I say that we won't double our output in 20-30 years and show little increase in per capita usage in 30 years the only way statistically to arive at your argument is a doubling of population... which even the high end IPCC predictions doesn't show happening in 20-30 years. You claim that it can double is not supported by the evidence and is only possible if either per capita trends or population dramatically deviate from trends (still dramatic but slightly less so if both break the running trends and high end predictions). Obviously this is true, but it is not the running trend in climate science to accept critiques by experts in their field where statisticians are shot down for not being climatologists when all they are critiquing are the data and statistics (ie. their specialty)... and climatologists are regularly maligned for having worked for energy or mining companies in the past rather than simply proving their claims false. Such unscientific methods have created whole cottage industries dedicated to such character assassination techniques. It isn't a red herring at all. Read Richard Lindzen and others on the gatekeeping present at the IPCC (hard to downplay the importance of the IPCC in AGW study). Lindzen's critique in 2001 of the IPCC has been downplayed for years, but given the growing criticism of the IPCC product and content, as well as reading emails of IPCC consultants discussing doing the very thing Lindzen claimed years ago only bolster his claims. Similarly we see current IPCC officials admitting the larger issues at the IPCC.. as well as even more historical warning signs of trouble at the IPCC from Prof. Paul Reiter. As I said, it is hard to play down the importance of the IPCC in forming the public awareness on AGW. Claims of "consensus", and evidence of a calamitous future if CO2 isn't controlled, all stem from the numbers of signatories on the IPCC reports (here RealClimate writes an article claiming IPCC as primary evidence of consensus), and the claims of melting glaciers, increased mortality, rising oceans, etc. etc. contained within the IPCC-ARs and the assumption that such claims are based uniformly on sound science. This is not the case, however.

No, because it is as I stated. Are you saying that they aren't linking climate and weather disasters in that article?

From that very same article they have the climate graph from NOAA (below): Look at the trend since about 2003. Does that appear to be an upward trend to you? Of course it does because it calls into question the assumptions for one of the primary (and actually the largest) forcers in global climate. If we don't understand the forcers, as the article admits we don't, how do you expect the long term to be correct? This is also on the tails of the Nature article regarding the overstatement of the CO2 climate sensitivity. So now how can we be certain of the future when we don't even know primary forcers we are concerned about? No, I am implying we don't know enough, and we assume that we know far more than we actually do. These two studies aren't nibbling at the edges of AGW theory, but suggesting dramatic changes to some of the very base assumptions in our understanding of Earth climate. Because that is the reason we have robust debate about this subject at all. If the assumption was that all is well with Earth's climate and nothing is abnormal then there would be nothing to discuss. A "skeptics", or "climate deniers", or however we are labeled on a given day, like me opposes the notion that we know enough about Earth's climate to make meaningful predictions at all about future climate. I don't see this study, or the CO2 sensitivity study as anything more than what they are: an increase in our knowledge of global climate that happens to pull back on the more dramatic predictions of future climate by the hotter heads in the discipline. It is a step forward for science and, as must be the case, a step backward for the alarmists.

Have I harped on "the trick"? All I have done is link you to an extended review of ALL emails, not the one or two that made it into the press. If you don't want to read it then say so, but hiding behind such silly dismissal tactics is really no better than the news agencies that release one email and call it the smoking gun. My suggestion remains: Read the article.. if it is any incentive to you we may even agree on some of the questionable conclusions of the author. But basing your belief on the smallness of these emails because of the chosen media hype focuses on very limited aspects of the whole isn't really any better. And, having read the emails in their entirety, I can also tell you that those defending the emails (or playing down the significance) are as guilty as those repeating "hide the decline" ad nausium. As for the "trick" and the "hide the decline", most pundits in the news get the significance completely wrong on both sides. The issue is not whether splicing observed data onto modeled data is valid in statistics or calculus, it is that the model in question diverged from the observed trend dramatically which called into question the predictive abilities of the model, rather than hiding an observed temperature decline. Merged post follows: Consecutive posts merged There were two filings, one on 9/12/2007 and one of 9/20/2007, both by Christopher Horner of CEI. Each requesting different data related (one to the Y2K correction, and the other more general) (link) The December 2009 lawsuit declaration was due to the lack of response to the CEI FOIA requests of 2007. See here: Judicial Watch press release. In which they state "These new documents, obtained by Judicial Watch through the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), include..." In this case JW appears to have received at least some of the data requested by CEI in 2007, how this will effect the CEI lawsuit I couldn't say.

How about you provide links. 1) Y2K error reduced the number of American records: True - I already provided those links 2) James Hansen was sued because he failed to comply with FOIA - True - I provided those links. Argue them, or argue links of your own. 3) False: An FOIA request was filed on August 20th, 2007 BEFORE he released his data and code (link to NASA FOIA docket list (pdf)) 4) You are correct, it wasn't a year, that is one out of 4... but a weak 1 out of 4, as it did require an FOIA to get the data and code released I suggest you scale back the victory parades in your honor, Bascule, as you are far from infallible yourself. See above. What is a "climate denialist"? I do not deny that there is a climate. I don't even deny that there has been demonstrable warming in the last 100 years. I do deny that there is sufficient evidence to indicate that the warming trend of the last 100 years is abnormal in the history of the planet, and I doubt that humanity is responsible for all (or even most) of the warming measured. Your choice of label for those of us not as concerned as you about current climate trends is born of the politics of the subject. Nobody denies "climate", and such implications there in are rather offensive and not conducive to discussion. Try doing the same, thanks in advance! No, here is the Washington Post blurb about the GISS press release. This claim had to be retracted later as it was heavily influenced by the Y2K error. As I have demonstrated, bascule, I am not "lying my ass off", and you would be greatly served by not running off at the mouth (or keyboard) so. As I stated before, as you and swansnot started calling me a "troll", it was your poor behavior as well as iNow and others that makes this site unwelcoming to those who's views are at odds with yours. It is THIS reason you will find many of us unwilling to hang around for extended periods of time. No, "trolling" is coming in an calling everyone here and idiot for not believing X,Y and Z specifically to get a rise out of the community. I have not done that, and at worst have reduced my self to responding in kind to such attacks from regulars on this board in the past.

Well, now there is a selective choice of phrase. It also said "flatten out" which means no warming. And it also says "doesn't explain all the decrease in the rate of warming", which tells me there is still a lot of unknown. The coffin into which that nail was driven was not for "man made global warming" but for our confidence in the predictive abilities of our models... aka. the whole basis for our concern. The damage this has is two fold -- and again, this is damaging to the assertions that AGW is a real and immediate threat to the planet. First it damages the credibility of the precision of current model predictions of future warming and second it damages the credibility of the predictive ability of these models on past temperatures. I'm not sure you need to be a scientist to understand that if we don't know where we're going, or where we've been, then the present loses meaning. Obviously these corrections are what science is all about, it is good to see a turn away from "the time for debate is over". But it is patently obvious, and has been for longer than many care to accept, that as a young discipline climatology has produced no real actionable material, and more attention than it really deserves... mostly due to scare mongering by people like James Hansen (who wants oil execs tried for treason against the planet: link to audio at NPR), Al Gore, and others.

I'm not asking you to play "Go Fish" I am asking you to read a specific article for which I also provided a link. There was this one (due to 3 years of stonewalling) And this one And here is another in the works. They are freely available now, and from a third party. See the CA links I provided for the history of the Fortran release and the year leading up to the release. I've provided the links. It's not cherry picked phrases. Again, read the article I provided. It is far more than the sound bites that were used by various media outlets. Read the article... not sure how many times I need to ask you. It is more than just scientists mad about pesky denialist outsidersl. There are numerous instances of these climatologists eating their own after one dares speak off the reservation about their views on AGW. It is not slanderous to point to documented blunders by a scientist and wonder about that scientists attention to detail. Truth is the best defense. So who do you consider leading the way? Mann.. Jones.. Briffa... Schmidtt? They aren't random accusations on a blog, they are their own words. Read it. If you are right then you have nothing to fear. A small incident that thyrough one of the three climate data warehouses into upheaval, and has snowballed into revelations that threaten the leadership of the IPCC. It is not a small incident. It's really pointless discussing this with you when you have zero interest in an actual exchange of information. So you wantto know so what? Just keep you eyes peeled, my friend. Over the next two years you will see "so what".

Yes, it is chock full of alarmist predictions that, just two years later, appear rather silly... including the "increased monsoons and flooding". Or is this another matter of their anecdotes of disaster are climate related while subsequent two years of average monsoons and hurricanes are "weather"? OR, the third way... can you agree that your posted article's use of weather related disasters are inappropriate in a discussion of climate? Yes, but those peopel would also know the pointlessness of a "warmest in 100 years" claim when talking about climate, I think. It was chosen to coincide with the rise in CO2 emissions beginning in the late 50s, early 60s. Or it was a pleasant coincidence... but not likely since that is the crux of the assertion by the AGW climatologists.

Well, that is quite a spread of predictions in that UN population graph, isn't it? And even the high UN estimate doesn't show a doubling of population in the next 40 years, much less 30. But it's the CO2 concentration in the atmosphere that we are concerned with and the concentration is related to CO2 production, is it not? Not quite the apples/oranges comparison you want it to be. And it is the doubling of CO2 concentration that we speak about causing X amount of warming, not CO2 production. It makes sense if the assumptions are correct. It has recently been found that shelled sea life grow thicker shells when presented with more abundant carbon, increasing the expected ability for oceans to absorb CO2. This also makes sense, and trends toward the findings of low sensitivity. The problem is that climatology draws from a lot of specializations from chemistry to biology to geology... as such, you don't need a climatologist to question a climatologist. A statistician is perfectly qualified to question a clmatologist's use of statistics, a geologist the use of geologic data, etc. So I don't buy the "in the field" qualification that has attempted to stifle real critique of climatology for over a decade.

Yes, but the whole reason the last 100 years is of any interest is it is supposed to be different than the past, abnormal. It has no real interest in and of itself, any more than 100 years of cooling would be by itself. You have selective memory, then. I generally leave because in the past their has been public berating of deniers much like you last post while you gave insult machines such as iNow free reign. In PMs I was always asured that "oh, we are dealing with iNow" but never was there actually any change. I haven't seen iNow yet, but others appear to have picked up the slack. I wound up on this thread because Bascule asked me to "opine" on this 100 year anouncement, it remionded my of past GISS "warmest ever" pronouncements that came to naught, and off we went.

That is a rather bizarre claim to make given that the press release is specifically about a "hotter" or "hottest" message. So of course they care. Hell, Hansen was recently arrested for chaining himself up outside a coal mine... so it's not like he isn't fully invested in one conclusion. It would change the perception, which is my point. The whole fact that they choose "recorded record" as opposed to a "last 1000 years" is due to perception. The fact that they consistently fail to insert the caveat that the century of warming is following the LIA is about perception, not the dry conclusion. It's absolute, and in the case of AGW it is also absolutely meaningless. No, I misread an article by Swansnot, but other than that I don't see how my observation isn't valid. "Warmest in a century" is meaningless unless you can prove some uniqueness over longer time scales, and have good reasons for your choices when choosing the scales. Because the whole endeavor is to show that the introduction of anthropogenic CO2 has caused an anomaly in the climate record never seen before. If you can't pick that anomaly out of the noise then any claim of AGW is meaningless... and 100 years is especially meaningless as, as I have said, follows LIA and also is completely bound inside the industrial revolution so the observation has no control outside the anthropogenic effect. 1000 years is somewhat better, but the confidence interval over even that modest time scale between 1000AD and 1880 makes it all but impossible to discern uniqueness of the last 100 years of signal over the other 900 years. And we aren't even considering the larger climate oscillation cycles that occur over several millenniums. Merged post follows: Consecutive posts merged But what is "warmest in a century" if not political? why does pure science care about the last decade in a time line that stretches for billions of years? Face facts, the "warmest in a century" is meant to sway peopl eto a very specific and political conclusion.

I linked you to the article concerning Hansen's Y2K gaffe. As I pointed out in the earlier post, it is his lack of attention to detail that has me wonder about his product. No, that isn't what I am saying. I am saying that selective choices of baseline change the tone of the graph. If instead of 1650-1680 you chose 1969-1999 it would, as you pointed out, show very little positive anomaly which would make concern a harder sell to the public. So how you choose the 0 is important, but for political reasons. As for choosing 1000 or 150 or 120 or 30 year time slices, that too depends on what message you are trying to convey. But in any case you are leading the data to the message rather than the reverse.

But it DOES matter, IA. As I said before, many of the reconstructions show warming trends well before the start of the industrial age. The appearance of the graph, as it is, make it look like there are only real warming after WWII... and you will often see the graph even worse than the one I presented where bars replace lines and the - anomalies are blue and the + anomalies are red.... again giving the impression that it was "cool" before the mean and "hot" after. If 1961-1991 is "good data" then what is 1880 to 1960? This goes back to the article I posted elsewhere where the UK Climate adviser is calling for greater honesty and clarity is communicating unknowns (see here). It is OK to say that 1961-1991 was chosen because we are uncertain about climate data prior to 1880 (and actually later than that). That would tone down the AGW narrative to admit that historical climate is still too uncertain... but you would mean we also have to stop using "warmest in 10,000 years" and such nonsense. Because we are comparing a largely unknown to a very specific when we do so. Anyway, for this reason I take any claim to "warmest in a century" with a grain of salt.. given that the period in question is directly following a period that was "coldest in a millennium". Without a clear grasp on the history we can't translate "+0.74C +/- .16" into anything meaningful on a historic climate scale. Like claiming "Friday noon in the warmest hour of the week... but I have no definitive data before Thursday at 9:00pm" Merged post follows: Consecutive posts merged Maybe, but you would have a hard time pinning it on CO2 since anthropogenic CO2 wasn't a factor until centuries later.

Here is what I am trying to get at with the anamoly line in these graphs: What if, arbitrarily, we chose to zero the graphs on, say, 1650-1680. If we are to assume that historic reconstructions are robust and of value there is no reason not to place the anomaly 0 at say 1675 (if that is indeed the mean temp of that time scale). It would certainly change the way we view the climate trends, with positive anomalies starting well before the industrial age on many of the reconstructions.

Yeah, I see that. But why choose 1961-1991 as the zero, and why 1100 years? Is it more than just arbitrary?

That's not the point of an anomaly graph. The fact that the 0 in the 150 graph falls roughly in the middle is by range selection.... but there is no reason to list an anomaly graph wherein the entire data set is presented. And your claim is certainly not the case for the 1100 year reconstruction graph or the mean for the 1100 years would be well below the given zero. Otherwise the anomalies would average out to zero across the time line with a self contained mean. Clearly they don't. Furthermore, the 1100 graph and the 120 year graph both show the 2000 anomaly as +0.4, so that 0 line appears to be the same, or very close to the same, mean temperature for both graphs.

They are completely substantiated. Again, that is why there was a need for an FOIA filing in the first place. I'm now wondering is Nicholas Barnes is the same "Nicholas" that has been working with Steve McIntyre to clean up Hansen code since 2008? The timing seems to match between the two. Anyway, it took a full year for McIntyre to get Hansen's code following his initial discovery of Hansen's Y2K error We seem to be trouble communicating here. When I say there is a problem with GISS data I am talking about the value added that spits out the other end of the code. But Hansen is certainly responsible for the data he feeds into his programs as much as he is the data that comes out the other end. He is also responsidle for the meta data that he includes in the code that smooths the data within the code itself. I'm sure we can keep passing the buck all the way down to the bowsens mate that was dragging the buckets onboard ship if you want, but it isn't particularly helpful. McIntyre is/was an outsider with no access to the programs themselves and he was able to find problems with Hansen's code that Hansen apparently couldn't. Why should I expect less diligence from Hansen than from McIntyre?

You countered the Hansen screw up with U.S. records with a Global climate record dating to 1850. Sorry I missed your switcheroo. This changes the point back to global climate trends rather than Hansen's numerous failures in regional claims. But as for the "warmest on record claims" in general, that's are really not terribly informative since recorded temperature is a 150 year span bounded at 1850 by the end of the little ice age. (to use your California argument, 150 years is only 0.0006% of the time since the beginning of the current Earth Epoch (end of the Tertiary)). So by claiming that 2009 is the warmest since 1850 is pointless unless I was arguing that the Earth hasn't warmed since 1850, which I haven't. Again, you countered the Y2K argument with a different claim. My bad for not catching it, but your claim does nothing to defend Hansen's veracity. Apologies. It doesn't change the triviality of the claim, however. For the sake of argument I will assume that Hansen's numbers are correct, however, and we can look instead at the real importance of the last 150 years of warming. According to the climate reconstruction models, even if the last 150 years is the "warmest on record", that would be because, according to the chart of reconstructions, 1940 onward (or so) is the first extended period in 1000 years where the global climate has been above the mean. (click for source) Should we expect an endless streak of negative anomalies (assuming, for the sake of argument, there is value to these reconstructions). On the shorter 150 graphs you have provided it shows that about 1979 and on (or 30 years of the last 150.. plus a short period in the 1940s) that has even been above Earth's mean temperature: Care to explain to me why being above the mean for 30 years is more important than the 120 (or 1000) tears before that we weren't? The headline could just as easily read "Last 30 years is the first time in 1000 years that the earths temperature was above average: Breaks 1000 year cold streak". I guess that wouldn't have the same political bite, however.

And keep in mind that Hansen is making such decisions on data covering 100% of the Earth's surface. Or, if you like.. consider that the buck/intake/unkown adjustment error covers the oceans... which is 71% of the Earths surface. It's in the article. It is a 0.3 bias in sea temps following the move to engine intake. But the bigger answer is "who knows"? There is a definite bias between the two measurement types (0.3C), but the trouble is that, as you can tell from the graph provided in the first CA article I posted, those trying to quantify these varying measurement types can't really be certain of larges amounts of data as late as 1985 when nearly 1/4th of all measurements were from unknown methods... and therefor can't be adjusted for accuracy. So the bigger answer is who really knows the effect? Do you not care that historic global ocean surface temp data is that muddled? Yes, they are quantified, and his "warmest ever" claims are particularly abysmal once anyone bothers to check the math. Retracted. The U.S. claim was countered by a global claim. This is a bizarre defense of GISSTemp, Bascule, and I would expect you to know why. Converting computer code for GISSTemp is not the same as auditing the underlying assumptions that are being plugged into the program (UHI, Bucket adjsutments, Siberian data transposition, and so on). I could write a program in COBOL that calculates bullet trajectory on Earth but if I use a gravity constant of 8.91 m/s2 then taking that code and converting it to Python will not make my calculations any more accurate because my underlying data was incorrect. This Python conversion makes the GISS program easier to follow, but these guys weren't looking at the data, or the UHI, or the validity of the data point selections, etc. etc. etc. The Climatecode project is a handy tool, but it is not a valuable audit of GISSTemp data as a final product.

Here is a good example of why you should be skeptical about what you read. That second article ignores the correction a full 3 months after NASA admitted that they got it wrong. The first wiki article is comparing temperatures over the last 20 years, not the last 100.. so excuse me if I'm not bowled over by it.

Because the rate of production hasn't doubled in the previous 30. Furthermore, we haven't even doubled the atmospheric CO2 ONCE since the begin of industrialization. Since 1891 atmospheric CO2 has gone up 37%. Maybe we should wait for that other 63% rise before we start taking credit for other doublings yet to begin? I think you may be looking at this wrong. the 40ppm sensitivity is not DEDUCED in a large body of evidence.. it is USED in a large body of evidence. I, like you, will be awaiting the results from using this sensitivity number in current models. If it results in more accurate predictions then great. We all know that the current models could use a lot of help in their predictions (past and future). It certainly can't get much worse. Also, I commented on your "critiqued" argument as I did because by definition peer review IS critique. Now you need further critique beyond peer review? This sounds more like denial than it does appropriate scientific criticism.

Read the review I linked. In it you will find all of the emails addressed individually, and on a time line. What you see there is not an "isolated incident" especially considering the sheer number of scientists that were copied on these emails as well as mentioned in the emails as working with the CRU group on these "unfortunate defenses" over the decade that this snapshot of emails covers. No it doesn't. There is a reason why Hansen has been under a FOIA lawsuit for a few years. Recently the FOIA was resolved in the favor of the plintif, and many Hansen emails, along with his coworkers, have been released. There is a lot of interesting stuff in that release.. If the data was readily available there would be no need to the FOIA requests. Who's wearing the tin foil hat again? This set of emails shows a 10+ year smear campaign against skeptics, and you spin it in your head to be a smear campaign in the other direction? Your attempt to connect it to Copenhagen is equally misplaced. No matter when this was released it would be connected to some political climate-change event somewhere. It doesn't? It has, if nothing else, ousted Phil Jones, and more, from their roles at UEA-Cru, frozen one of the three big gridded global climate data sets (CRUTem3), at the same time it has lead to the Met Office issuing a full 3 year audit of HADCrut (another of the three), leaving GISSTemp... which is riddled with problems itself. All that is left is GHCN raw data.. which is problematic for the non-skeptic side because all of the warming claims are taken from the "value added" big three, not GHCN raws. You've sited the GISSTemp today, for example. Which is like using Enron press releases to verify stock value even after internal emails were released where CEOs were ordering the account book hidden. Furthermore it casts real doubt on Michael Mann, who's work has figured prominently in all of the IPCC-ARs since #2. Furthmore, the String of emails in "climategate" wherein Mann and Jones and others discuss how to deny inclusion of studies in the IPCC report created a greater interest in what papers actually WERE included in the most recent IPCC-AR. This lead to the discovery of the Himalayan Glacier claim in the IPCC being tracked back to a non-study opinion piece produced by the non-scientific advocacy group the World Wildlife Fund. The interest in the IPCCs Himalayan embarrassment has lead to greater interest in the origins of the IPCC claims.. which has brought out the questionable links between the head of the IPCC the India energy company TERI. Which has lead to leading climate scientists calling for Pachauri to step down and even a redo on the IPCC itself (here are two: link and link). Furthermore, the problems with the IPCC_AR4 don't stop in the Himalayas. A cursory review of AR4 has turned up 18 more dubious WWF citations for it's claims. That is not a small incident.