The award-winning scientist responsible for creating, collecting, and maintaining the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA) data archive, John Bates, recently disclosed leading NOAA’s climate scientists violated the agency’s rules, rushing to publication data which had yet to be tested and confirmed in order to influence the outcome of the Paris climate negotiations in 2015. In a second breach of agency protocol, the scientists involved, led by Tom Karl, failed to properly archive and store their datasets for testing and public disclosure.