I have been following this story on a number of weather and news boards. From what I can determine the most damaging item in the entire collection of hacked (or leaked ?) files is the HARRY_READ_ME.txt document. It is far more revealing than the emails about the state of research at the CRU. This is a 194 KB text file describing in detail (including code extracts and lists of data readings) the trials and tribulations of the eponymous 'harry' trying to produce a new master database of readings from various weather stations. Despite the fact that the old master database appears to have been full of corrupt data it was still used as the basis for validating and incorporating new readings. As someone who works in IT this document reads like the real deal to me (ie if it is a forgery or has been amended then someone has gone to get the feel right). In some circumstances it looks as though the CRU has lost its original source material and had to reconstruct it. Given this situation it may explain why the they have been reluctant to provide its records for open peer review since that would expose many of the faults and inconsistencies. If this data was used as input to predictive models I would regard any output as being highly dubious. Normally this sort of thing would just be a small storm in academia. Unfortunately, this is simply too important an issue with implications for housing, food, energy, economic and social policy effecting billions of people to allow this type of ropey data vetting to pass unchallenged. As so often happens in the world of learning I suspect that questions of jobs, careers, research grants, desire for acceptance by ones colleagues etc is playing a significant and not always benign role in how studies are carried out.