Posted on May 6, 2010 by Mark Walker
By now, everyone is familiar with “Climategate”, the scandal surrounding the hacked e-mails from the Climate Research Unit (CRU) at the University of East Anglia in England. The inner workings of CRU are significant because the CRU is responsible for preparing the land temperature records upon which most of the climate change studies are based and which, more importantly, form the foundation for the assessment by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) that manmade greenhouse gas emissions are responsible for global warming. The e-mails at issue include many e-mails which had previously been requested by numerous Freedom of Information requests, but which East Anglia had refused to produce, including e-mails relating to the preparation of the IPCC 2007 Fourth Assessment Report.
The CRU Temperature “Adjustments”
Most people probably think that land temperature records are the product of the rather mundane ministerial task of collecting and reporting actual temperature readings from weather stations around the world. However, there are numerous “adjustments” to the actual temperature readings which are made by CRU. There are adjustments made to account for the different times of day that the readings are taken. In addition, it is well recognized that urban areas artificially increase the measured temperature because materials like concrete, asphalt and metal structures collect and retain heat during the day and release the heat during the night. This artifact, known as the “urban heat index” (UHI), must be accounted for in the land temperature records. The magnitude of the proper adjustments for UHI are the subject of intense scientific debate, and the extent of any adjustments made for UHI serve to reduce global warming attributed to manmade greenhouse gases. Scientists that have studied UHI have also made subjective calls as to which weather stations to include and exclude in their studies, thereby injecting another “adjustment” into the equation. Numerous Freedom of Information requests had been made to and resisted by East Anglia for the underlying raw temperature data and the UHI adjustments that CRU made to such data, as well as requests for the underlying data upon which the Director of CRU, Dr. Phil Jones, had based his previous UHI studies.
EPA Endangerment Finding Based Upon IPCC Assessments
As one of the foundational components of the IPCC’s assessments, the accuracy of CRU’s temperature records have far reaching implications. The IPCC assessments were relied upon by the United States Supreme Court in Massachusetts v. EPA, and were a cornerstone of the EPA’s Endangerment Finding in response to Massachusetts.
Commonwealth of Virginia’s Challenge to Endangerment Finding
Although there have been numerous challenges to EPA’s Endangerment Finding, several have specifically raised Climategate as the basis for their challenges. Noteworthy are the separate challenges filed by Virginia and Texas. In its challenge, Virginia claims that the Climategate e-mails demonstrate that the, “CRU scientists questioned the reliability of their own data, the methodologies used in developing and analyzing such data, and the conclusions based thereon.” Virginia maintains that the EPA had a duty to independently investigate and verify the accuracy of the CRU temperature records upon which most of the climate change research and IPCC assessments are based. In addition, Virginia claims that the, “EPA substantially ceded its obligation to make a judgment whether GHGs may endanger public health and welfare to the IPCC, an international body that is not subject to U.S. data quality and transparency standards.”
State of Texas’ Challenge to Endangerment Finding
Texas’ 38 page Petition for Reconsideration takes the drama and intrigue to the next level, painstakingly discussing the Climategate e-mails, the context in which they were made, and the conclusions which Texas maintains should be drawn therefrom:
“Previously private email exchanges among top IPCC climatologists reveal an entrenched group of activists focused less on reaching an objective scientific conclusion than on achieving their desired outcome. The scientists worked to prevent contravening studies from being published, colluded to hide research flaws, and collaborated to obstruct the public’s right to public information under open records laws.”
The future of Climategate in the courts is uncertain. It may eventually be viewed as the event that exposed the political agenda behind some of the climate change “science”, or it may be viewed as a tempest in a teapot. In any event, its inclusion in these legal proceedings ensures that Climategate will for the foreseeable future be included in the ongoing climate debate and certainly that it will survive beyond the usual 24 to 72 hour news cycle.
Tags: Climate