In case you are just joining us, here is some background on the story below. I know the identity of the mole. The ball is now in CRU’s court. Steve McIntyre reports below and throws down the gauntlet.
More news on the Met Office/CRU molehunt.
Late yesterday (Eastern time), I learned that the Met Office/CRU had identified the mole. They are now aware that there has in fact been a breach of security. They have confirmed that I am in fact in possession of CRU temperature data, data so sensitive that, according to the UK Met Office, my being in possession of this data would, “damage the trust that scientists have in those scientists who happen to be employed in the public sector”, interfere with the “effective conduct of international relations”, “hamper the ability to protect and promote United Kingdom interests through international relations” and “seriously affect the relationship between the United Kingdom and other Countries and Institutions.”
Although they have confirmed the breach of security, neither the Met Office nor CRU have issued a statement warning the public of the newCRU_tar leak. Nor, it seems, have they notified the various parties to the alleged confidentiality agreements that there has been a breach in those confidentiality agreements, so that the opposite parties can take appropriate counter-measures to cope with the breach of security by UK institutions. Thus far, the only actions by either the Met Office or CRU appear to have been a concerted and prompt effort to cover up the breach of security by attempting to eradicate all traces of the mole’s activities. My guess is that they will not make the slightest effort to discipline the mole.
Nor have either the Met Office or CRU contacted me asking me not to further disseminate the sensitive data nor to destroy the data that I have in my possession.
By not doing so, they are surely opening themselves up to further charges of negligence for the following reasons. Their stated position is that, as a “non-academic”, my possession of the data would be wrongful (a position with which I do not agree, by the way). Now that they are aware that I am in possession of the data (and they are aware, don’t kid yourselves), any prudent lawyer would advise them to immediately to notify me that I am not entitled to be in possession of the data and to ask/instruct me to destroy the data that I have in my possession and not to further disseminate the sensitive data. You send out that sort of letter even if you think that the letter is going to fall on deaf ears.
Since I am always eager to help climate scientists with these conundrums, I’ll help them out a little here. If, prior to midnight Eastern time on Thursday, a senior executive of the Met Office or the University of East Anglia notifies me that I am in wrongful possession of the data and directly requests me to destroy my copies of the CRU station data in question and thereby do my part in the avoidance of newCRU_tar proliferation, I will do so.
I will, of course, continue my FOI requests since I do not believe, for a minute, that their excuses have any validity nor am I convinced that the alleged confidentiality agreements actually exist nor, if they exist, am I convinced that they prohibit the provision of the data to me.
A picture of the mole can be found here: http://www.google.com/images?q=tbn:LxZ3JvggKS-IPM::www.ratemyeverything.net/image/5298/0/Rate_My_Mole.ashx
So does this data endanger the “Alan Parsons Project” ?
We’re secrecy-mad here in the UK. It used to be the case (don’t know if it still is) that the day’s food menu at the Houses of Parliament was a secret. I’m not joking. You struggle to find out anything here as we have a ‘Data Protection Act’. It’s really funny when it comes up against the Freedom of Information!
As for the Met Office, I’m still trying to get them to answer why they still say that “Temperatures are continuing to rise”. http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/climatechange/guide/bigpicture/fact2.html When their own data says they’re not http://www.cru.uea.ac.uk/cru/data/temperature/hadcrut3gl.txt That first link includes, “A simple mathematical calculation of the temperature change over the latest decade (1998-2007) alone shows a continued warming of 0.1 °C per decade.” I’ve emailed them a number of times to tell them that that IS NOT the latest decade – and that if they include 2008, it actually shows a fall. But they refuse to reply to my emails now. We also have a problem with the Central England Temperature (CET) – which shows a biased and misleading anomaly. According to them, 2009 is showing as a plus anomaly. But if you average the last 10 years of temperature (which I have done) you get a figure that is almost 2.5 degrees C down!
If the above story had been posted on any other web site I would have suspected tom-foolery, a hoax, a story lifted from the old TV show “Get Smart”.
If I were you I’d say that I would destroy the data and then if they formally request you to do so, I’d ignore them. Wait a second, you might have that in mind and
if so I shouild not have mentioned that. (Backspace Snip, backspace, Snip,,,,,,,,)
according to the UK Met Office, my being in possession of this data would, “damage the trust that scientists have in those scientists who happen to be employed in the public sector”
1.) Too funny.
2.) D’ya think?
The mole is actually a friend of the coal industry, see the documentary movie produced in my homeland, The Mole and the Coal:
I am afraid that the mole, despite his old friendship with kids of three generations, is gonna become politically incorrect.
http://motls.blogspot.com/2007/09/mole-and-coal-becomes-politically.html
evanmjones
Waaay too funny.
What I find funniest is the fact that the majority of the climate-change $cientists are completely dependent upon public money – so, in effect, they are all employed by the public sector and must have no trust in themselves.
So what they are saying is that privately generated data used in publicly funded research cannot be divulged? This reminds me of the past when secret use of toxic chemicals were used on unsuspecting victims to determine deleterious affects. We CANNOT allow this kind of research to ever happen again. All data, all methods, and all proposed and current applications MUST be made free to the public, be it privately or publicly generated for public application, or else the public is at risk of being duped as it has in the past, and to GREAT harm!
There is such a thing as informed consent. Before I paid a carbon tax on something someone said was harmful to me, I would insist on informed consent. That means show me the raw data, the methods used, and its applications. For free. Can you imagine taking a drug that has had such a secret past?
I now have an image in my head of Steve M dressed a la Clint Eastwood, the man with no name, complete with poncho and hat. He is calmly chewing his cheroot as he stands outside the Met office waiting for the cowardly bad guys to show. Meanwhile, Anthony Watts (looking remarkably like Lee Van Cleef) is outside the saloon holding the horses.
I wonder what’s going to happen next.
re.: Boudu “…I wonder what’s going to happen next.”
We’ll enjoy the movie. Title “The Good, the Bad and the Ugly”
Data is just data.
What makes temperature information ‘sensitive’ ?
How can it’s mere availability have the consequences they describe ?
Only if it has been incorrectly manipulated could it have any damaging effects.
As a lawyer, if asked, I would advise them that when in a hole it is best to stop digging.
Barry Foster – the CRU data has 2 lines of data for each year – the first appears to be an anomaly, the second is?
You’ve got to be kidding.
Put the data up on the Internet!
Now!!!
MattN – Don’t steal the picture. Give people an opportunity to Rate My Mole: http://www.ratemyeverything.net/post/5298/Rate_My_Mole.aspx
I think you done it, Anthony. No ‘soap opera’ could match the intrigue on this one. Your hits are likely to go through the ceiling. Better bring another server online for load balancing. lol
I also hope that Steve is going to get a good look at that dataset before he considers destroying it and at least lets us know in some manner just how bad it is (if it is) even if not in some formal analysis.
You never know how these things can blowup in the MET’s face if they handle this wrongly and the press sees a story.
according to the UK Met Office, my being in possession of this data would, “damage the trust that scientists have in those scientists who happen to be employed in the public sector”
As if any scientist takes seriously anything the MET puts out.
“I wonder what’s going to happen next.” . . . I suggest we use this as fodder for a remake of the classic British Sit Com “Yes Minister”
Working title “Mr. Minister, We Have Been Exposed”
Lots of storyline possibilities.
Episode One, “The Obfuscation Ball” . . . where the Minister’s Staff create ever more whacky ways to refuse to release “secret” data that they have. Rambling memos, incomprehensible rules based on circular logic and magical incantations and spells . . what will they think of next to cover their backsides
Episode Two, “The Great Mole Hunt” . . . . where the British MET hires two those famous WARMongers, Al Gore and Prof. Phil Jones, to find who’s is leaking the badly tortured weather “data” to unwashed “Non-Academics” – and a colonial lower class non-academic to boot. When will those beastly colonials learn their plavce. We only want them around when the Germans get uppity and let their armies march West (we can’t count on the French anymore to stop them)
Anybody want to do Episode 3 ??
They caught the culprit. Quick, Mr. President, call back the bombers!
Somehow a feeling creeps up. What if Steve McIntyre is not the only one who has recieved this data?
The data could become useless for anyone outside, you can’t use it after the Met Office demands it to be destroyed and Steve would look bad because it could suggest that he might have send around copies of that data whereas in fact it is someone else spreading that data.
What if the Met Office did leak those data-sets on purpose? All in all they don’t have to disclose who this mole is and no one will then step forward claiming that he was/is the mole. At that point the Met office can simply claim that measures are being taken and that the mole is being handled out of court and out of sight, or better say nothing at all about this so called mole.
In the meanwhile the Data is quite useless and tainted, its there but it can’t be used. Storming the frontdoor this data becomes much harder since already is shown that you are a party wich in the eyes of the Met office is suspect at the very least.
Now if they where te talk of the town they could not get away with it, but they aren’t.
Boudu, my image of Steve and Anthony is more like Woodward & Bernstein, who broke the Watergate story, as portrayed by Robert Redford and Dustin Hoffman in the film, “All the President’s Men.”
So who’s playing Nixon this time?
They haven’t done all the things that are nomally associated with state secrets because the weather is not a state secret. It’s public phenomena.
Hundreds of millions of ordinary people have thermometers, barmometers, anemometers and rain gauges.
All they are using the weather for is cover for a FUD campaign.
Smoke screen.
Why bicker over what color the smoke is when the intent is to obscure thier real objectives?
If you admit that the real data got out, then you admit that what you have been telling people is not the truth.
This goes the same way IPCC hides it’s models, in obfuscation.
Can the Met Office now trust the data it gets from its suppliers, or will the suppliers be altering the data so it is of less value than the data which they sell? Or have suppliers already been damaging their submitted data? We can’t check that without the Met’s data.
Today’s yup environmentalists were the same idiots who thought the world was flat until the late 1400’s. Face it people,
you can speculate until doomsday; but no matter how you look at it Mother Nature, and the atmosphere are always going to be beyond your comprehension. You can follow Al Gore right to the center of hypocrisy and you’ll still be guessing wrong. Live with it…
Barry Foster (10:01:33) :
“As for the Met Office, I’m still trying to get them to answer why they still say that “Temperatures are continuing to rise”. ”
This graph — Hadley Annual Mean Central England Temperatures.
http://junkscience.com/MSU_Temps/HadCET_an.html
is derived from this data
http://hadobs.metoffice.com/hadcet/cetml1659on.dat
When I first came accross the data I remember the maximum temperature of any year being 10 degrees centigrade. Perhaps they are manufacturing a hockey stick.
Not sure why Steve “accepted” the data in the first place. He knows that this is not public data, and having some “mole” steal the data and give it to him is illegal. What are you trying to accomplish by this anyhow? Do you think you are going to expose some vast scientific conspiracy with your limited ability to analyze this data?