I would also take issue with Charles’ statement that right wingers and skeptics are ranting and fuming. This is a rather cartoonish view of the situation.

The main antagonist of the CRU scientists is Steven McIntyre, a Canadian mathematician who blogs at climateaudit.org. The site is very heavy on statistical analysis with little to no political commentary let alone ranting or fuming.

McIntyre’s name crops up many times in the hacked emails because he was responsible for discrediting Mann’s hockey stick graph and, more recently, revealing that Briffa’s tree ring analysis from Siberia relied on just a dozen trees, even though many dozens were available. Interestingly the dozen that were used all showed recent warming.

McIntyre has been seeking the underlying data for all of these publicly funded climate studies for 10 years and always denied. This triggered on of the more worrying revelations about the CRU team.

Leader Phil Jones said in 2005 that he would delete the data before handing it over to McIntyre. This year Jones said most of the data had been lost or accidentally destroyed.

Considering the highly political tone of the emails and the frequent discussions about withholding data and thwarting skeptical submissions in scientific journals, one wonders if this data was indeed lost accidentally.