Hacked global warming e-mails – what's new?

– In an article titled "Global warming accelerates; Climategate rumbles on," Reuters notes that "skeptics are "using a flood of leaked e-mails from a British University — dubbed 'Climategate' – to question the findings" of the Copenhagen Diagnosis. (For more details, see "Amid charges of global warming hoax, new warning on climate change.")

– Sen. Inhofe announced that he would probe whether the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) "cooked the science to make this thing look as if the science was settled, when all the time of course we knew it was not."

– In Britain, former chancellor Lord Lawson, a global warming skeptic, called for an inquiry into data "manipulation" about global warming, as a result of the e-mails. (See here for an interview with Lawson.)

– Climate scientist geochemist Thomas Crowley, a professor of geosciences and director of the Scottish Alliance for Geosciences and the Environment at the University of Edinburgh in Scotland, criticizes skeptics and the press in an e-mail interview with The Washington Post's Andrew Freedman.

– Professor Phil Jones Director of the Climatic Research Unit (CRU) at the University of East Anglia in Norwich, England, says that charges of conspiracy over climate change are "rubbish," reports the Guardian.

– Security experts say the hack could lead to future attacks, reports ChannelWeb, which adds that there could be "... more malicious attacks down the road, as hackers use cybercrime to further political agenda." Also, the individuals whose e-mails were exposed now have some of their private information in the public domain and could be subject to phishing or worse.

– The University of East Anglia. which had been criticized for its tepid response to the extensive e-mail theft, announced that plans to launch a review of the incident.

– In an analysis of the impact the e-mails might have on the upcoming UN Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen and on a possible US climate bill, Reuters says they aren't the game-changer that skeptics hope.

– But many think that the credibility of climate scientists and climate science have been damaged.

In any case, the issue doesn't seem likely to disappear quickly. And we'll keep following it.

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