(With apologies to A. Conan Doyle.)
Breaking, but not in the MSM just yet: A hacker (or leaker) has copied over 60Mbytes (compressed) of e-mail correspondence, documents, data files and programs from the University of East Anglia Climate Research Unit (CRU), the laboratory of Dr. Phil Jones, and one of the primary sources for data and analysis supporting the global warming hypothesis. The zip file has now been removed from the Russian server where it was first posted, but has predictably appeared at numerous other places on the net. Jones has now confirmed that the leaked data appears to be genuine.
E-mails posted in whole or part at WUWT and other sites appear to describe data manipulations that may or may not be misleading. They are, however, quite explicit is discussing how to manipulate the scientific review and publication processes to prevent dissenting views from appearing. With the release out for only a few hours, there's not been enough time for a full forensic or scientific review of the included documents, so we'll have to stayed tuned and cautious. Even if the bulk of the release is genuine, there's always the chance that it has been 'salted'. With literally trillions of dollars at stake with prospective cap-and-tax and other AGW 'mitigations', there is plenty of incentive here for skullduggery.
My only observation so far is that the e-mail release is obviously cherry-picked, given the number of messages compared to the time period involved. Without seeing all, or a representative block of the total messages, we don't know how or why they were selected. The original Russian posting described this as a 'random selection', implying there's more data out there. The implied threat of further release now hangs over the CRU; someone out there may be learning from Breitbart's tactics of dribbling out the damning data.
Update: On Drudge, Fox, Guardian and BBC now. You can amuse/inform yourself by searching or reading the leaked e-mails as long as it lasts. 'FOI' is reputed to be a good place to start.