Did CRU manipulate Russian climate data?
The Register: A prominent Russian climate sceptic and free-market economist says that the British HadCRUT global temperature database – much of which has now been released to the public following the “climategate” email scandal – has been manipulated to show greater warming in Russia than is actually the case. Andrei Illarionov, a former economic adviser to then-Russian President Putin, is head of his own thinktank in Moscow, the Institute of Economic Analysis (IEA). He is also a senior fellow at the Cato Institute, a libertarian American thinktank. He has always been a climate sceptic, having vigorously opposed Russia’s signing up to the Kyoto protocols. On Tuesday, Illarionov released the following report (pdf in Russian), comparing the newly-released HadCRUT data to records from the Russian meteorological service, which supplied the parts of HadCRUT covering Russia. According to Russian newpaper Kommersant, as relayed via the RIA Novosti news wire, Illarionov says that the HadCRUT d
