Global Warming embarrassment?

I don’t pretend to be an expert on global warming. I’ve met with prominent scientists and with knowledgeable skeptics. I tend to lean toward believing it is real, but I’m absolutely convinced it has become politicized beyond any reasonable discussion.

Now, however, a furor has broken out across the Internet because someone allegedly hacked into the Hadley Climate Research Unit in Britain and dumped a bunch of documents and sensitive e-mails into cyberspace. (Read a Wall Street Journal blog on it here, Read a different account here, and here.)

The e-mails apparently make references to things like “hid(ing) the decline,” supposedly referring to the decline in global temperatures, which would tend to argue against global warming. The leaked documents first appeared on a blog called The Air Vent.

Is this real? Is it a hoax? Frankly, I’m not sure. I wouldn’t have posted it except that the Wall Street Journal says Hadley “apparently confirmed” the leak and other news sources are beginning to carry the story.

One thing is for sure, if the story has legs it will make next month’s global warming summit in Copenhagen interesting.