He did it to expose the climate change skeptics.
Nature‘s blog has the interview, here.
Why did you decide to construct the fake website? Was it purely a joke or did you set out to make people taking your paper at face value look foolish?
Its purpose was to expose the credulity and scientific illiteracy of many of the people who call themselves climate sceptics. While dismissive of the work of the great majority of climate scientists, they will believe almost anything if it lends support to their position. Their approach to climate science is the opposite of scepticism.
Are you surprised at the pick up your coverage has generated?
Not really. Equally ridiculous claims – like those in the paper attached to the “Oregon Petition” or David Bellamy’s dodgy glacier figures – have been widely circulated and taken up by the ‘sceptic’ community. But you can explain this until you are blue in the face. To get people to sit up and listen, you have to demonstrate it. This is what I set out to do.
Still waiting for someone to back up junk science purveyor Steve Milloy’s claim that the hoax was exposed by the skeptics it was aimed at. The hoaxer doesn’t think so.
[Yeah, I know — Nature is a British publication, and they use the British spelling for “skeptic.”]
Posted by Ed Darrell 
Millard Fillmore's Bathtub 