Climategate: Case Closed

Police in the UK declare their investigation of the infamous email hacking scandal over, but fail to finger the perpetrators of the attack.

Written byBob Grant
| 1 min read

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A local police force in the United Kingdom has closed its investigation into the 2009 incident in which private email accounts of researchers at the University of East Anglia Climatic Research Unit (CRU) were hacked, and stolen messages between climate researchers were posted on the Internet, causing some to question the integrity of climate science. The Norfolk Constabulary announced Wednesday (July 18) that it did "not have a realistic prospect of identifying the offender or offenders and launching criminal proceedings" within the 3-year statutory window imposed by UK law. Police characterized the incident as a "sophisticated and carefully orchestrated attack on the CRU’s data files, carried out remotely via the Internet."

The so-called Climategate scandal sent shockwaves through the world of climate research, as some parts of the pilfered messages suggested that CRU researchers and their collaborators in the United States and elsewhere were hyping up global warming to incite ...

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Meet the Author

  • From 2017 to 2022, Bob Grant was Editor in Chief of The Scientist, where he started in 2007 as a Staff Writer. Before joining the team, he worked as a reporter at Audubon and earned a master’s degree in science journalism from New York University. In his previous life, he pursued a career in science, getting a bachelor’s degree in wildlife biology from Montana State University and a master’s degree in marine biology from the College of Charleston in South Carolina. Bob edited Reading Frames and other sections of the magazine.

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