Skullduggery abounds

THE NEW YORK TIMES has a report about what has been called a "computer hack" into the University of East Anglia’s Hadley Climatic Research Centre.

Why should you care? Well, according to the Times, the revelations:

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.

FABIUS MAXIMUS has a page about the hack, with numerous links, as does WATTS UP WITH THAT?

There is going to be so much knee-jerk on both sides over this, rehab clinics are going to have to hire more staff.