FRAUD OF THE CENTURY? - AT 10:36 A.M. ET:  A number of readers, led by Ken Braithwaite, alerted us to this story before it hit the mainstream media.  Now it's hit.  It could be a major story, dealing with a possible major scandal, if it's allowed to breathe by the press, and if the "scientific community" acts responsibly and demands investigations.  This is about "global warming, from The New York Times:

Hundreds of private e-mail messages and documents hacked from a computer server at a British university are causing a stir among global warming skeptics, who say they show that climate scientists conspired to overstate the case for a human influence on climate change...

...In one e-mail exchange, a scientist writes of using a statistical “trick” in a chart illustrating a recent sharp warming trend. In another, a scientist refers to climate skeptics as “idiots.”

Some skeptics asserted Friday that the correspondence revealed an effort to withhold scientific information. “This is not a smoking gun; this is a mushroom cloud,” said Patrick J. Michaels, a climatologist who has long faulted evidence pointing to human-driven warming and is criticized in the documents.

And...

In several e-mail exchanges, Kevin Trenberth, a climatologist at the National Center for Atmospheric Research, and other scientists discuss gaps in understanding of recent variations in temperature. Skeptic Web sites pointed out one line in particular: “The fact is that we can’t account for the lack of warming at the moment and it is a travesty that we can’t,” Dr. Trenberth wrote.

Yeah, we've kind of wondered about that little thing, too.

At first, said Dr. Michaels, the climatologist who has faulted some of the science of the global warming consensus, his instinct was to ignore the correspondence as “just the way scientists talk.”

But on Friday, he said that after reading more deeply, he felt that some exchanges reflected an effort to block the release of data for independent review.

He said some messages mused about discrediting him by challenging the veracity of his doctoral dissertation at the University of Wisconsin by claiming he knew his research was wrong. “This shows these are people willing to bend rules and go after other people’s reputations in very serious ways,” he said.

COMMENT:  This can grow and grow.  Remember, there are careers involved, and government grants, and reputations, and prizes.  Those things are often more important than "science" to many people.

Skepticism toward the "science" of warming is increasing.  These revelations will just magnify that skepticism.  It's time Congress held some thoughtful, informed hearings on the whole subject. 

We tend to think of scientists as godlike.  They are not.  They are investigators.  There have been scientific and medical theories that have been accepted for decades, only to be proved wrong.  Before we invest trillions of dollars in "global warming" projects, maybe we'd better find out exactly what's in this can of worms.

November 21,  2009