[tome]

These people have acquired millions if not billions of taxpayers' money

Millions I can imagine. That's several peoples salaries over several years. But billions? Surely he shouldn't be making such an extreme claim without detailing how he thinks that value is broken down. It seems obviously nonsense just by rough order of magnitude estimates.

[te_platt]

Does he mean climate scientists in general or Hadley Climate Research Unit specifically? Or some mix?

From http://www.opinionjournal.com/extra/?id=110008220:

"Indeed, the success of climate alarmism can be counted in the increased federal spending on climate research from a few hundred million dollars pre-1990 to $1.7 billion today"

Billions of taxpayers money is no exaggeration for the general case.

[electromagnetic]

Hadley is presently the only place where proof of tampering has emerged, which IMO casts serious doubt on any work emerging from Hadley if it cannot prove that its work is not being tampered with.

IMHO I doubt this is an endemic problem in climate research, no matter how much I despise the many statisticians claiming they're scientists. Statisticians show correlations, scientists prove causation. However with literally billions of dollars on the table, it certainly makes me curious of the validity of other researchers work.

With a $1.7B cake on the table, are people lying so that the host of the party (the federal government) gives them a slice?

[CWuestefeld]

AIUI, Hadley is the origin of much of the baseline data that everyone else uses. And that data itself isn't just raw numbers, but is massaged to factor out the heat island effect, for example.

The snippets of emails that I saw suggest (but don't prove, contrary to their opposition) that the methodology for building that baseline data was tainted.

So if that underlying data must now be considered corrupt, then it also calls into question any other research that used the baseline data.

[gjm11]

The snippets of emails I've seen that allegedly come from the Hadley archive do not, in fact, constitute "proof of tampering".

[viggity]

Directly it may only be in the millions, but think about how many research assistants that they've had, plus all of their computer equipment, plus the money it takes for their offices/labs, plus the conferences they go to. Billions might be off, but tens or hundreds of millions seems reasonable.

I also think the author is grouping in a lot of extra climate scientists in with this group, which isn't technically fair but I personally don't think it is so unreasonable to think that this is a somewhat common practice in any collegiate research (let alone climate research). You can't get grant money if you don't show results. I think the one area where you'd have less of this influence is academic medical research - because double blind studies is a standard practice in that field.

[tome]

You can hardly accuse people of the theft of millions or billions if what they've done with it is buy research equipment and fund conferences.

They've appropriated it for their own ends, sure. But that's what academia everywhere does without having to give much of a justification.

[dantheman]

If you lie/commit fraud to receive something it's theft. If they data was honestly misinterpreted then of course it's not, it's just a mistake. Also, this has nothing to do with current case, I haven't looked at it so I don't know what they did or did not do.

[electromagnetic]

Agreed, what these people have currently taken is likely only in the millions, maybe tens-of-millions. However the UK government has pledged to essentially 'do whatever it takes' to combat global warming, which the governments 'own' (IE private company they paid) estimates state that combating global warming will require billions of pounds for the UK alone.

[fburnaby]

When we're talking about how much money is involved with this research, and claiming it as an incentive for climate scientists to lie, we realize that this is money that's being spent on research right? Do we? There is no incentive for them to do anything other than get published, and this by no means requires any lying or forging of data.

Please tell me we understand this fact. Nobody (that is, no scientists) is pocketing money and running here, they're spending this money on research gear and on hiring analysts and grad students and the like. Given this, how is the amount invested relevant at all?

[anamax]

> (that is, no scientists) is pocketing money and running here

Are they getting paid? (If not, who is paying their living expenses?)

Is it "money" only if it goes for hookers and booze?

> There is no incentive for them to do anything other than get published, and this by no means requires any lying or forging of data.

Scientists are people.

Refereed journals only publish what the referees believe and what they find interesting. (There were the equivalent of refereed journals for ether, phrenology, eugenics, etc. and I suspect that there are still refereed journals for astrology.)

Getting published may not require "lying or forging", but they can help in certain circumstances. So can being sloppy in the "correct way".