For all of our UK readers, now is the time for all good citizens to come to the aid of their country (and science). The Met Office refuses to release data and methodology for their HadCRUT global temperature dataset after being asked repeatedly. Without the data and procedures there is no possibility of replication, and without replication the Hadley climate data is not scientifically valid. This isn’t just a skeptic issue, mind you, others have just a keen an interest in proving the data.
What is so bizarre is this. The FOI request by Steve McIntyre to the Met Office was for a copy of the data sent to Peter Webster. If the restrictions on the data hold for Steve McIntyre, why did they not prevent release of the data to Webster?
When asked by Warwick Hughes for this data, Dr. Jones famously replied:
Even if WMO agrees, I will still not pass on the data. We have 25 or so years invested in the work. Why should I make the data available to you, when your aim is to try and find something wrong with it.
This is just wrong on so many levels. This isn’t state secrets, it is temperature data gathered from weather stations worldwide and the methodology of collating and processing it. Much of the weather station data is available online and live via hundreds of Internet sites, so the argument that “strict understanding by the data providers that this station data must not be publicly released” is in my opinion, bogus. You can get a list of CRU stations. Go to: http://www.cru.uea.ac.uk/cru/data/landstations/ and download the file: crustnsused.txt
And then look up any number of these stations on the Internet and get the data.
The fact that Hadley/Met Office repeatedly refuses to disclose the data and methodology only deepens the likelihood that there is something amiss and Hadley does not want to be caught out on it.
Dr. Jones is looking more and more like a “very bad Wizard” with each denied FOI request.
Science and scientists should demand open access to this data. If GISS can do it, why not Hadley? They share much of the same data.
Steve McIntyre tells the complete story below. My advice to UK readers, start sending an FOI request every week and complain loudly to your UK representatives and write letters to the editor. Details are in the body of the post below. – Anthony
UK Met Office Refuses to Disclose Station Data Once Again
It must be humiliating for the UK Met Office to have to protect Phil Jones and CRU. Even a seasoned bureaucrat must have winced in order to write the following:
Some of the information was provided to Professor Jones on the strict understanding by the data providers that this station data must not be publicly released and it cannot be determined which countries or stations data were given in confidence as records were not kept.
Here is the complete text of the UK Met Office’s most recent refusal of their station data.
Our Ref: 22-06-2009-131902-003 23 July 2009
Dear Mr McIntyre
Request for Information – Information not Held and Refusal to Disclose Information
Your correspondence dated 9 June 2009 has been considered to be a request for information in accordance with the Environmental Information Regulations 2004. The Ministry of Defence is permitted to withhold information where exceptions are considered justifiable.
You asked “You stated that CRUTEM3 data that you held was the value added data. Pursuant to the Environmental Information Regulations Act 2004, please provide me with this data in the digital form, together with any documents that you hold describing the procedures under which the data has been quality controlled and where deemed appropriate, adjusted to account for apparent non-climatic influences”.
Your request has been assessed and this letter is to inform you that the Met Office does hold some information covered by the request. We do not hold documents describing the procedures under which the data has been quality controlled or adjusted to account for apparent non-climatic influences.
The information held by the Met Office is withheld in accordance with the following exceptions pursuant to the Environmental Information Regulations Act 2004:
• Section 12 (5) (a) Information likely to prejudice relations between the United Kingdom and any International organisation;
• Section 12 (5) (e) Confidentiality of commercial or industrial information where such confidentiality is provided by law to protect a legitimate economic interest.
• Section 12 (5) (f) (i) (iii) The supplier was not under legal obligation to supply the information and has not consented to its disclosure.
As the above exceptions are qualified exceptions, a public interest test was undertaken by the Met Office to consider whether there are overriding reasons why disclosure of this information would not be in the public interest. The Met Office has duly considered these reasons in conjunction with the public interest in disclosing the requested information, in particular the benefits of assisting the public having information on environmental information, whereby they would hope to influence decisions from a position of knowledge rather than speculation.
Access to environmental information is particularly important as environmental issues affect
the whole population.
Consideration of Exception Regulation 12 (5) (a)
Much of the requested data comes from individual Scientists and Institutions from several countries. The Met Office received the data information from Professor Jones at the University of East Anglia on the strict understanding by the data providers that this station data must not be publicly released. If any of this information were released, scientists could be reluctant to share information and participate in scientific projects with the public sector organisations based in the UK in future. It would also damage the trust that scientists have in those scientists who happen to be employed in the public sector and could show the Met Office ignored the confidentiality in which the data information was provided.
We considered that if the public have information on environmental matters, they could hope to influence decisions from a position of knowledge rather than speculation. However, the effective conduct of international relations depends upon maintaining trust and confidence between states and international organisations. This relationship of trust allows for the free and frank exchange of information on the understanding that it will be treated in confidence. If the United Kingdom does not respect such confidences, its ability to protect and promote United Kingdom interests through international relations may be hampered. Competitors/ Collaborators could be damaged by the release of information which was given to us in confidence and this will detrimentally affect the ability of the Met Office (UK) to co-operate with meteorological organisations and governments of other countries. This could also provoke a negative reaction from scientist globally if their information which they have requested remains private is disclosed.
Consideration of Exception Regulation 12 (5) (e)
The information is also withheld in accordance with the exception under regulation 12 (5) (e) because the information comprises of Station Data which are commercially sensitive for many of the data sources (particularly European and African Meteorological services) release of any data could adversely affect relationships with other Institutions and individuals, who may plan to use their data for their own commercial interests. Some of this is documented in Hulme, 1996 but this is not a globally comprehensive summary.
The Met Office are not party to information which would allow us to determine which countries and stations data can or cannot be released as records were not kept, or given to the Met Office, therefore we cannot release data where we have no authority to do so. Competitors or collaborators could be damaged by the release of information which was given to us in confidence and could affect their ability to trade.
The Met Office uses the data solely and expressly to create a gridded product that we distribute without condition.
Consideration of Exception Regulation 12 (5) (f) (i) and (iii)
The information is also withheld in accordance with the exception under regulation 12 (5) (f) (i) (iii) as Professor Jones was not legally bound to release the data to the Met Office and has not consented to the disclosure to any other party. As stated above in 12 (5) (a) Some of the information was provided to Professor Jones on the strict understanding by the data providers that this station data must not be publicly released and it cannot be determined which countries or stations data were given in confidence as records were not kept. The Met Office received the data from Professor Jones on the proviso that it would not be released to any other source and to release it without authority would seriously affect the relationship between the United Kingdom and other Countries and Institutions.
I hope this answers your enquiry.
If you are not satisfied with this response or you wish to complain about any aspect of the handling of your request, then you should contact me in the first instance. If informal resolution is not possible and you are still dissatisfied then you may apply for an independent internal review by contacting the Head of Corporate Information, 6th Floor, MOD Main Building, Whitehall, SW1A 2HB (e-mail CIO-XD@mod.uk). Please note that any request for an internal review must be made within 40 working days of the date on which the attempt to reach informal resolution has come to an end.
If you remain dissatisfied following an internal review, you may take your complaint to the Information Commissioner under the provisions of Section 50 of the Freedom of Information Act. Please note that the Information Commissioner will not investigate your case until the MOD internal review process has been completed. Further details of the role and powers of the Information Commissioner can be found on the Commissioner’s website, www.ico.gov.uk.
Yours sincerely,
Marion Archer
FOI Manager
Submit a Freedom of Information request to Phil Jones’ employer:
The FOI officers are: Met Office marion.archer [at] metoffice.gov.uk and
CRU david.palmer [at] ues.ac.uk
This is just for UK citizens.
http://petitions.number10.gov.uk/CRUSourceCodes/
A petition asking for CRU source code.
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As much as I’d like to see the data and methods, I can understand the bureaucratic mindset that says not to release it, especially if a lot of the station data are from military runways and includes LAT / LONG it would be a dream list for folks planning how to take out airports in battle…
Maybe a single FOI just for methods would divorce the methods data from the “location of airports” data…
REPLY: Ummm… have you ever tried “Google Earth” I can get the whole airport layout in seconds, complete with photographs, no lat lon needed to find it. – Anthony
It looks like the “settled Science” has settled science in the trash heap.
Is that so surprising? Discussing facts and information is work. Back in 1989 Tom Wilkie reported in The Independent (23 September, p.8) under the title: „Environment expert launches attack on ‚corrupt scientists’“ about a speech by James Lovelock,
QUOTE
He said that everyone, including the Greens, needed science, but not the kind of science we had now. Science has grown fat, lazy and corrupt, “and like an obese atherosclerotic, man imagines that more rich food will cure his conditions”
UNQUOTE
I cannot understand how they get away with it! Makes me mad. I suggest people in the UK write to every newspaper and complain!
I wonder what they have to hide?
Maybe the below is the reason for not wanting to disclose the data…
http://climaterealists.com/index.php?id=3743&linkbox=true
Met Office ‘Barbecue summer’ hopes dashed by Piers Corbyn
“These events and short medium and long range forecasts now active spell failure for the Met Office forecast of a ‘barbecue summer’ which we advised our own forecast users to ignore. This is the third wet summer for Britain and Ireland in a row where the weather has turned out to be opposite to the Met Office long range prognosis and has instead been in line with our long range forecast. Along with the Met Office spectacular failure to predict the icy & snowy winter of 2008/09 which also confirmed WeatherAction’s forecast one has to ask: For how much longer will government, ‘opposition’ and much of commerce continue to follow failed methodology?
“The Met Office long range forecasts will continue to fail because they are founded on the politically motivated false theory of man-made global warming and related computer models. The fact is the world has been cooling for at least 7 years while CO2 has been rapidly rising. Our proven science explains why and shows the world cooling will generally continue at least to 2030 and the world will remain generally cooler than recently for a hundred years”.
The Met Office is in serious trouble. It has failed over the past few years to forecast the seasonal summer and winter weather. This has led to criticism by private companies, government and public agencies, such as retailers, local councils and health boards, who are dependent on such forecasts when it comes to planning budgets and contingency preparations. The Met Office’s failures has cost companies, government and public agencies £billions. It has led to loss of profits, a loss of jobs, and unfortunately a loss of life during the last winter’s severe weather in the UK.
All this is a direct result of the Met Office being held hostage by the Green Taleban.
Interesting that humble weather data now has the status of “Top Secret” not to be disclosed.
They must have something to hide !!
Before you know it we’ll have Weather Hackers, attacking their computer databases.
On what basis can the public have confidence in the product of the Met Office if their data cannot be reviewed or crosschecked by other independant scientists.
Those that know what to do with this information may like to get some political help. Nigel Lawson now Baron Lawson of Blaby is not convinced by the “science” behind AGW.
“Lord Lawson claims climate change hysteria heralds a ‘new age of unreason'”
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/earthnews/3338632/Lord-Lawson-claims-climate-change-hysteria-heralds-a-new-age-of-unreason.html
As Margaret Thatcher’s Chancellor during the 1980s, he may have som influence.
http://biographies.parliament.uk/parliament/default.asp?id=27077
http://biographies.parliament.uk/parliament/default.asp?id=27077
Ploitical interests – Climate change
So, I have a naive question.
All these peer-reviewed papers that used the HadCRUT data set. How have they been reviewed? Did the reviewers have access to the data set? If they don’t, the papers couldn’t have been reviewed properly.
Why would any data provider want secrecy? presumably because countries with a big tourist trade wouldn’t want it generally known if their favorite tourist destinations showed up as too hot or too wet during certain months. But that information is online anyway, mostly. And it’s unlikely that releasing it to McIntyre would have the effect of pin-pointing such tourist-hot-spots as unpleasant-to-visit.
I think that secrecy of this sort (global climate analysis) was not covered within the meaning of the act.
Well at least Anthony I can get your website at Heathrow. Keep up the good work.
I am flying to Norway with Joanne’s first translated Skeptics Handbook – in Norwegian.
I’ve found what I reckon is the science piece to complement Joanne’s skeptics Handbook – the scientific case from the ice records of why CO2 cannot be a forcing agent – at present a powerpoint file by George White. Link to it from my Reclaiming page. Would have given the URL direct but Heathrow’s unfamiliar PC and time limits prevent. Hope at least that I got my own URL correct.
“We considered that if the public have information on environmental matters, they could hope to influence decisions from a position of knowledge rather than speculation.”
Says it all!
And they tell us to approve of the 5 trillion CCTV cameras over here because “if we’re doing nothing wrong we have nothing to hide.”
BS. (sorry, I can’t do a 480 point font)
Isn’t the data available here? I must be missing something.
http://www.cru.uea.ac.uk/cru/data/temperature/
Reply: This is not the raw data being sought in the repeated requests. ~ charles the moderator
EM Smith @02:13:22
The LAT/LON fidelity that would be provided with the data which you think the owner’s would want to protect for military reasons can be easily obtained or even exceeded with the fidelity of Google Earth. Sorry, but that argument doesn’t hold water.
The commercial interest *does* make sense, but if the providers aren’t willing to publicly release their data then it simply can’t be tested and falsified in a scientific manner and any repert that contains the data can’t legitimately be considered a valid scientific publication.
You can get the stations list as described in the posting & get the raw data direct.
Bit of a faff on & really invalidates the refusal of the FOI request.
It’s Phil Jones’ processing of that data that is the important bit.
DaveE.
I said my goodbyes to the UK a few years back… RIP UK… unfortunately they appear to have have other plans for the populace… Mushroom Management is everywhere – keep them in the dark and occassionally feed them some bullshit.
On a more positive note the internet is still a source of light and information… although I wonder for how much longer it will be tolerated… fingers crossed…
Global Warming or Global Cooling?
A New Trend in Climate Alarmism
by Dr. David Evans
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=14504
Land thermometers cannot be trusted because, even in the USA, 89 per cent of them fail siting guidelines that they be more than 30 meters from an artificial heating or radiating/reflecting heat source, and their data is forever being “corrected”.
Anthony: You should be very proud. You are making a difference. THANK YOU!
PS: The “Wizard of Oz” clip is just perfect 🙂
Surely a British government agency wouldn’t ‘sex up’ the facts to improve their case or for political gain ?
We are definitely not in Kansas any more.
It is easy to believe that the methodology used to convert raw temperature data to the published temperature sets could inadvertently introduce a warming or cooling bias. So, the various methodologies need to be audited.
I can see that Scientists who have spent a “career” doing the work would be afraid of an independent (potentially unfriendly) audit — who wouldn’t be in a similar situation.
Nonetheless, if a Scientist is so afraid that they “block” an audit, that indicates to me that they know (if unconsciously) they have a problem.
Thus, a failure to supply the requested information, makes it “highly probable” to me that the “corrected” temperature data are “bogus” in some important respect (if inadvertently).
At a minimum, I have to proceed under that assumption — if I am considering the spending “trillions” of public money based, in large part, on that data.
[snip] World Court is the place to file the grievance.
The Obama admin bringing a suit is out of the question. They are one of the chief beneficiaries of the crime.
Canada’s federal government perhaps.
No even better. Václav Klaus as head of state for the Czech Republic …
I don’t think it would take much asking to persuade President Klaus to bring a suit against the UK on our behalf.
I asume that MetOffice is beeing financed by tax payers money. If thats the case they should be open and transparant to other citizens.
Lindsay H (02:54:31) :
“Interesting that humble weather data now has the status of “Top Secret” not to be disclosed.
They must have something to hide !!
Before you know it we’ll have Weather Hackers, attacking their computer databases.
On what basis can the public have confidence in the product of the Met Office if their data cannot be reviewed or crosschecked by other independant scientists.”
We don’t take the Met Office seriously. They are a long-standing public joke. But they are far enough into cloud-cuckoo land to imagine that we do. They must be sniffing something other than CO2.
The trouble is the total culture of secrecy in Britain. Even the number of cups of tea drunk by the civil service is a state secret!
Wonderful Democracy England has going there….. ? Can anybody play? Or is it just for tyrants?
It is worth noting that the Brown government will fall next year. Perhaps the UK citizens could start a concerted campaign with the tories who will certainly form the next government.