See update at the end

If you follow climate news, you’re probably already aware that someone has illegally published another 5000 climate emails, probably from the original “Climategate” hack from two years ago. S&R is following the story and will publish a more in-depth analysis as we learn more. However, we feel it’s important to point out the following key facts about the original emails and their subsequent investigations:

• Three separate investigations in the UK, one by Parliament, one by a group associated with the world’s oldest scientific body, the Royal Society, and a third convened by the University of East Anglia, found no evidence of fraud or scientific misconduct.
• Two separate inquiries into alleged misconduct by climate scientist Michael Mann found no evidence of misconduct, and a third investigation by the National Science Foundation also found no evidence of misconduct.
• S&R investigated a number of conspiracy claims against climate scientists in general, and Michael Mann in particular, and found them all lacking any factual basis.
• S&R also looked at whether it was possible to extract reliable enough information from cherrypicked email records to support conspiracy charges and found that both research and common sense argued against some form of climate science conspiracy.

If the new emails are, as seems likely, from the same hack as the original, then some hacker has been hunkered down in his parents’ basement waiting to pull these repeatedly investigated emails out like some leftovers left to ferment in the back of the fridge for two years. If the first batch of undercooked emails couldn’t derail the scientific basis underlying human-cause climate disruption, then the leftovers aren’t likely to do more than cause acid indigestion.

Update Here’s a list of sites covering this so far and who aren’t deniers off in the weeds hunting snipes:
Media Matters
DeSmog Blog
Get Energy Smart
ThinkProgress Green
HuffPo
Climate Progress
Barry Bickmore
Climate Crocks
UEA press release
BBC
Guardian