If you're like me, you haven't been able to make much sense of ClimateGate: is it just insider political backstabbing? What are the scientific implications, if any? Fortunately for us, frequent contributor Michael Goodfellow has read through the source documents and compiled a comprehensive, very accessible report.

Longtime readers already appreciate the clarity of Michael's writing and thinking. He has addressed the evidence for global warming in two previous essays:

Global Warming: Our Story So far
NASA and the Warmest Year

Here is his report:

Reading the "ClimateGate" Emails

On November 19, 2009, a 61 megabyte file called "FOI2009.zip" started to circulate on the Internet. This contained a directory of over 1000 emails sent to and from people at the Climate Research Unit, University of East Anglia, UK, plus supporting documents and software. Check a BitTorrent site for "FOI2009.zip" if you want a copy, or you can find a searchable index of the email at www.climate-gate.org.

CRU is one of the major climate research centers, and the people sending the messages are the biggest names in climate science. The revealed messages have been fairly embarrassing to the people involved. Phil Jones, the director of the CRU, has temporarily stepped down while it's being investigated.

Right-wing global warming "deniers" are having a field day with it. Mainstream press and the lefty blogs are taking a "move along, nothing to see here" attitude. Many commenters don't seem to have read the emails themselves. They are just repeating the same fragments over and over in the usual echo chamber.

I've been interested in climate issues for awhile now, and have written a couple of long pieces on where I think things stand. If you had to describe my position in a single sentence, it would be "the current data, models and theories of climate aren't solid enough to say one way or the other if humans are warming the planet."

Click here to read the rest of the report.

Thank you, Michael, for sharing your analysis. Oftwominds.com reprinted Michael's two essays, as well as another excellent climate-data analysis by correspondent Protagoras:

The Hockey Stick Breaks (June 25, 2007)

Permanent link: The One Report on ClimateGate You Should Read

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