CLIMATEGATE EXPANDS - AT 7:39 P.M. ET:  Our wonderful correspondent, Renee Nielsen, who did those poignant reports during the Mumbai terror attack, alerts us to the latest in what is being called "climategate," the falsification of data on climate change.  From The Times of London:

SCIENTISTS at the University of East Anglia (UEA) have admitted throwing away much of the raw temperature data on which their predictions of global warming are based.

It means that other academics are not able to check basic calculations said to show a long-term rise in temperature over the past 150 years.

The UEA’s Climatic Research Unit (CRU) was forced to reveal the loss following requests for the data under Freedom of Information legislation.

The data were gathered from weather stations around the world and then adjusted to take account of variables in the way they were collected. The revised figures were kept, but the originals — stored on paper and magnetic tape — were dumped to save space when the CRU moved to a new building.

Why do I get the feeling that this is the tip of the iceberg?

The admission follows the leaking of a thousand private emails sent and received by Professor Phil Jones, the CRU’s director. In them he discusses thwarting climate sceptics seeking access to such data.

COMMENT:  It is time for major investigations, not only involving East Anglia, but the entire field of climate change.  The nations of the world have been asked to alter their economies, spend trillions, and reshape lifestyles, based on calculations that are increasingly suspect.

The dissenters, often described by the global-warming guys as crackpots or even Holocaust deniers, look increasingly good.  Polls show that the American people, no dummies, are becoming suspicious.

Congress should act.  But look who controls Congress. 

November 29, 2009