Un pirate informatique a diffusé sur internet un ensemble de mails et de documents qu’il affirme avoir dérobé sur le serveur du Climate Research Unit de l’université d’East Anglia en Grande Bretagne.

L’université a reconnu la réalité du piratage mais ne confirme pas pour l’instant l’authenticité des documents.

Toutefois, la structure et le contenu des messages publiés semblent indiquer qu’il s’agit bien d’originaux dans lesquels les chercheurs discutent et élaborent le contenu de leurs travaux et publications.

Les sites rassemblant les sceptiques quant à la réalité du changement climatique ont publié le contenu de quelques messages qui sont présentés comme apportant la preuve d’une volonté des scientifiques de dissimuler certaines données, et en particulier, un mail de Phil Jones, le directeur du centre, où l’on peut lire :

"I’ve just completed Mike’s Nature trick of adding in the real temps to each series for the last 20 years (ie from 1981 onwards) and from 1961 for Keith’s to hide the decline.”

Voici les précisions apportées par un rédacteur du blog scientique Real Climate :

The paper in question is the Mann, Bradley and Hughes (1998) Nature paper on the original multiproxy temperature reconstruction, and the ‘trick’ is just to plot the instrumental records along with reconstruction so that the context of the recent warming is clear. Scientists often use the term “trick” to refer to a “a good way to deal with a problem”, rather than something that is “secret”, and so there is nothing problematic in this at all. As for the ‘decline’, it is well known that Keith Briffa’s maximum latewood tree ring density proxy diverges from the temperature records after 1960 (this is more commonly known as the “divergence problem”-see e.g. the recent discussion in this paper) and has been discussed in the literature since Briffa et al in Nature in 1998 (Nature, 391, 678-682). Those authors have always recommend not using the post 1960 part of their reconstruction, and so while ‘hiding’ is probably a poor choice of words (since it is ‘hidden’ in plain sight), not using the data in the plot is completely appropriate, as is further research to understand why this happens.

Andrew Freeman, du Washington Post, a interrogé l’historien des sciences Spencer Weart sur cette affaire.

What do you think this story reveals about the conduct of climate science ?

SW : Back around 2000 leading climate scientists talked to each other mostly about their science—debating one another’s data and analysis and negotiating travel, collaboration and other administration—and a little bit about policy. As time passed they have had to spend more and more of their time answering criticism of the scientific results already established, criticism mostly based on ignorance, fallacious reasoning, and even deliberately deceptive claims. Still more recently they have had to spend far too much of their time defending their personal reputations against ignorant or slanderous attacks.

The theft and use of the emails does reveal something interesting about the social context. It’s a symptom of something entirely new in the history of science : Aside from crackpots who complain that a conspiracy is suppressing their personal discoveries, we’ve never before seen a set of people accuse an entire community of scientists of deliberate deception and other professional malfeasance.

Even the tobacco companies never tried to slander legitimate cancer researchers. In blogs, talk radio and other new media, we are told that the warnings about future global warming issued by the national science academies, scientific societies, and governments of all the leading nations are not only mistaken, but based on a hoax, indeed a conspiracy that must involve thousands of respected researchers. Extraordinary and, frankly, weird. Climate scientists are naturally upset, exasperated, and sometimes goaded into intemperate responses... but that was already easy to see in their blogs and other writings.

Sur le web :

Guardian : Climate sceptics claim leaked emails are evidence of collusion among scientists

Real Climate : The CRU hack