It was a climate change skeptic's dream come true: across the blogosphere, 62 mb worth of emails from the Climate Research Unit (CRU), part of Britain’s University of East Anglia, had become public information, and seemed to point--in the most extreme skeptics' opinions--to a climate change conspiracy. But scientists are standing by their research.

Here's the gist: scientists at CRU are largely under scrutiny for appearing to conceal information from the public, and doctoring charts to serve the interests of climate change scientists (one scientist wrote to another explaining a little "trick" he'd used to portray information in a graph). But several scientists involved maintain that while the language they used was poor, the emails are not incriminating in terms of the veracity of their research, and perhaps even lend to the scientists' integrity by demonstrating their determination to find legitimate supporting information. (In any case, the emails did not paint scientists in a positive light. One scientist refers to skeptics as "idiots" while another email, according to the New York Times, contained "a photo collage that portrays climate skeptics on an ice floe.") 

Investigations are still underway to confirm the authenticity of the documents and identify the hacker. The use of open proxies can hide the identity and location of a hacker, but computer forensics could lead investigators to the IP address where it all began. Another issue of concern is whether computer hacking will become a popular tool to further political agendas in the future.

In the meantime, CRU is defending its researchers from independent climate scientists over access to information, maintaining that much of its research is publicly available, and that which isn't will be released when CRU is granted permission by national meteorological services that own the data.

So what now?  As Keith Johnson of the Wall St. Journal puts it, "Much of the attention in recent days has focused less on the how than the what." While the investigation ensues, attention has shifted to an assessment of the information that the emails contained. But despite casting a shadow of doubt on some scientists' actions, it seems unlikely that the release of these emails--even in the weeks leading up to Copenhagen--will be able to seriously undermine years of research that confirms human contribution to global warming. And some worry that giving too much attention to the emails will give hackers exactly what they want by confusing public understanding of climate change. According to the Guardian, Andy Atkins, Executive Director of Friends of the Earth, said, ""The overwhelming majority of climate scientists believe that climate change is happening, that it is man-made, and that it poses a major threat to people across the planet. We can't afford to be distracted from the need for urgent action."

Here's what people from both sides have been saying about what has now been coined "Climategate":

"The leaked emails from the University of East Anglia will not affect the UN's advice on global warming....The processes in the IPCC [Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change] are so robust, so inclusive, that even if an author or two has a particular bias it is completely unlikely that bias will find its way into the IPCC report."(Rajendra Pachauri, Chairman of the UN's climate change body/Telegraph)

“This whole concept of, ‘We’re the experts, trust us,’ has clearly gone by the wayside with these e-mails.” (Judith Curry, climate scientist at Georgia Institute of Technology/New York Times)

"I’ve seen the file, it appears to be genuine and from CRU. Others who have seen it concur- it appears genuine. There are so many files it appears unlikely that it is a hoax. The effort would be too great." (post from Wattsupwiththat, a blog that questions the validity of climate change/Wattsupwiththat)

“The number of attacks on our integrity will actually increase since there will be more ways to twist what it is we do to support some conspiracy theory or other.” (Gavin A. Schmidt, NASA climatologist who is involved in the email exchanges/New York Times)

"This doesn't make any difference at all in degree of consensus on climate change...I hope it boomerangs back on the criminals." (Michael Mann, director of the Earth System Science Centre at Pennsylvania State University/The Guardian)

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Cherrylynx's photostream/Creative Commons