Apologies – I thought I clearly indicated (e.g. by starting with “indeed”) support for the notion that Fortran-77 is portable. Later versions of Fortran are a bit less so, if you make extensive use of project-related extensions, which are not supported equally in all environments.

Actually, I was trying to make two points: (1) Fortran-77 is considered eminently portable, and (2) you don’t even have to be a programmer to easily check this claim; google will serve you the answer in no time at all. One could argue that an investigation that doesn’t bother to do even that level of fact checking loses a bit of credibility.

They are the residual emails of a batch which had already been *sanitized* from the CRU systems, in order to illegally prepare an incomplete response to FOIA request.

Theory: These are deleted emails from a sanitized batch which were foolishly or purposely archived and/or discovered by an insider or whistleblower (perhaps the sanitizer himself). The insider then had pangs of conscience or an axe to grind and released them surreptitiously.

If it was an insider, the “victim” (CRU), does not want him uncovered, for he knows too much.

“It is time scientists realised that they are in a war. There are no rules in love and war. The sceptics know that. So long as they can get away with their lies and false accusations scot-free, then the battle for the future of the planet will be lost.”

http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2010/07/penn-state-reports/

…as an award-winning scientist with international reputation, I find this language to be repellent in the extreme! Scientists serve humanity, not the other way around.

(2) The conditions referred to in subsection (1)(d) are—

(a) that, at the time he makes the disclosure, the worker reasonably believes that he will be subjected to a detriment by his employer if he makes a disclosure to his employer or in accordance with section 43F,

(b) that, in a case where no person is prescribed for the purposes of section 43F in relation to the relevant failure, the worker reasonably believes that it is likely that evidence relating to the relevant failure will be concealed or destroyed if he makes a disclosure to his employer, or

(c) that the worker has previously made a disclosure of substantially the same information—

(i) to his employer, or

(ii) in accordance with section 43F

So assume that FOIA was a CRU insider, tasked with collecting information to support the 105 FOI requests we know about. Collection would be legal as they were had the authority to do so. If CRU/UEA refused to release the FOI data, I think 43(G) would apply. Don’t forget we also had statements from the ICO that they would have prosecuted if not for being statute barred.