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.
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.
There is a pattern emerging:
GISS, with dubious ways to handle data. MetOffice, afraid to have people look for problems with how they handle data.
When AGW falls into popular disrepute, and people start performing critical reviews, its promoters will not fare well.
@ E.M.Smith (02:13:22) :
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…
Ever hear of Google Earth? It will flag every airport in the world automatically. Type in “Military bases” in the search bar and it will flag them for you. And if that isn’t enough you can go to http://www.globalsecurity.com and find tons of info on location, equipment, etc. for the entire planet. That excuse is bogus.
This entire response from the Met Office is pure unadulterated BS.
All we need to be able to say now is
“Ding Dong the Witch is dead”
Just to let you cousins across the pond know, this last month has been heavy rain interspersed with sunshine. A typical British Summer which historically forced millions of Brits overseas in search of sunshine.
Hey but that’s weather not climate?
Or is it weather in a temperate zone, during the Holocene?
Remember Comment is Free if you agree.
My suggestion is that until the data and methodology is released whenever Hadcrut or the Met or UEA is referred to on a blog, state the links have no credibilty because they are refusing to release the information.
That aint working that’s not the way yah do it
You raise the temperature by a few degrees
Yea That’s the way to do it
Global warming and the money is free
If you snip the last bit you will completely ruin a budding career as a song writing plagiarist.
I noticed the July economic report in the USA has also gone on holiday.
Why do governments do this, it just makes things worse. The truth will not remain hidden. I have come to believe that land temperature is only useful to the hoaxers. I mean, don’t they get paid to maintain their stations and siting? What’s the money for if not to maintain the measurement system at peak efficiency and accuracy.
Unless that’s not what they want.
It should be noted that anybody – not just UK citizens can make a Freedom of Information request (or an environmental information act request).
You can do it by email and you also don’t even need to give your actual name (the act just asks for A name).
http://www.whatdotheyknow.com allows you to make a request online and anonymously (if desired) – with the request you make and the follow up received all being publicly accessible.
So go on – lets start sending them in!
Oops, problem with typing in the dark!
The link is http://www.whatdotheyknow.com
I agree with what has been said so far, about the methodology being requestd as Anthony has stated that much of the data is available from the web.
I don’t accept the military argument per se, although I can see one or two tinpot banana republics strutting their stuff & sabre rattling, which could cause a mild embarrassment for a short while, until a few million squid is payed over for aid, like fertilizer for crops, which can then be turned into IED’s for blowing little up the ocassional soldier, for instance.
The scientific method is being abused blatantly, but British bureaucracy has always dealt in deceipt, lies, obfuscation, we’re masters at it, probably the only thing we’re any good at any more! Having an FOI Act like ours, toothless, smacks of the old ‘D’ Notice favoured by governments old & new, where either a 30 years or 60 year rule is applied so that when the truth finally emerges, the guilty will be free of redress as they’ll be 6ft (1.828m) under in old money. Let’s go for the methodology then!
The Met Office is suffering from great embarrassment, although I expect many on the inside wish they hadn’t bought in to AGW so readily. Piers Corbyn is absolutely right, but he has to get into the public’s view on the msm, but Auntie Beeb has such a strangle hold on this thing it’s almost impossible to do so, & the Independents aren’t much better.
Do we all independently make a request for this information, or do so via a petition with as many signatories as possible? I would have though the latter may produce the desired effect but who knows?
Question: If the GISS and the HadCrut datasets are both suspect what global temp dataset can be used to determine long-term global trends?
Dan B
Solar cycle linked to global climate, drives events similar to El Nino and La Nina -Provided by NCAR, Boulder, CO
http://www.astronomy.com/asy/default.aspx?c=a&id=8466
ABSTRACT
The forced response coincident with peaks in the 11-yr decadal solar oscillation (DSO) has been shown to resemble a cold event or La Niña–like pattern during December–February (DJF) in the Pacific region in observations and two global coupled climate models. Previous studies with filtered observational and model data have indicated that there could be a lagged warm event or El Niño–like response following the peaks in the DSO forcing by a few years.
Sad Science (02:50:26) :
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
What a load of tosh!!!
May-June in Gloucestershire was sunny and hot – we had a number of bbqs
July has been wet cold hot sunny in equal proportions (didn’t wimbledon not get rained off this year?)
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. .
What!!! The local weather is not determined by GCMs (Global!!!!)
What would be the point of using incorrect models that continually predict incorrectly. They would use models based on UK conditions. as all they are going to do is predict weather not climate!!!! They would TRY for the baest accuracy possible for UK .
The fact is the world has been cooling for at least 7 years while CO2 has been rapidly risingOur 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
What proven science? There is no more proof of no AGW as there is of AGW. Even using the “world cooling” is a bit over the top considering the temp has stabilised recently (as it has done a number of times in the last few decades. This is the nature of the climate beast. Temps may rocket this year or fall next. Until it happens no one knows.
GHGs are a blanket round the world changing the radiation budget. Heat (radiation) in must equal heat out for a stable temperature. Change the sun’s output and temperature of the world will change until heat radiated at a new temperature = heat input. Change the blanket type/thickness and heat radiated at a certain temperature will change. Make the heat loss less at a specific temperature and the temperature must rise to make outgoing radiation again equal incoming radiation. (there are of course other factors changing the radiation budget – e.g. cloud/ice albedo)
THE RADIATION BUDGET IS EVERYTHING
Under the blanket all hell can break loose. Wind patterns, Ocean Currents, Ocean oscillations all affect the global temperature but have little effect on the radiation budget. Indeed cold areas will radiate less heat to space causing the input to exceed the output radiation, and so the world warms (negative feedback).
These sort of things can be classed as weather.
These sort of things can cause global cooling/warming on a short time scale.
BUT if the GHGs/solar output, for example, are still causing the radiation budget to be more in than out then temperature will again rise when transient cooling event finishes.
Time will tell.
PS
Please be careful using the terms such as crooks, fraudsters etc against named or implied individuals. You could be setting up the blog owner and yourself with a defamation case in the UK courts (in defamation in uk you are guilty unless YOU can prove innocence). It only costs £2k to bring the case but could cost the defendants £100ks to prove innocence.
Please be careful!!
A case in question:
http://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWHC/QB/2008/1797.html
Your details can be forced out of the blog owner with a Norwich Pharmacal application:
http://www.casecheck.co.uk/Default.aspx?tabid=1184&EntryID=14609
I think this is just for UK citizens.
http://petitions.number10.gov.uk/CRUSourceCodes/
A petition asking for CRU source code.
I’ve signed so they’ll be watching me now LOL
DaveE
If they are not guilty of hiding something, then they should have no problem with people looking at their code…..
An appropriate video
Anthony: I did not request the PEter Webster version from the Met Office. That is the subject of a separate request to CRU which is presently outstanding. The request to the Met Office, as stated in the request and reply, was for the “value added” version as the Met Office possessed it.
Non-UK citizens can submit FOI requests as well, so don’t feel encumbered. Rather than signing petitions or that sort of piling on, I’d prefer that we make up a list of countries and divide them up, with each reader making a separate FOI request for a small number of countries. I’m going to request a few key countries and will post a copy of my letter at CA later today and will correspond with Anthony about this.
E.M.Smith (02:13:22): If this data is held secret then it should not be used for climate research. Let the military use it, but if it isn’t public it can’t be subjected to verification. Therefore, it should be considered tainted until proven otherwise.
DaveE (05:41:47) :
I’ve just signed too. I’ll be writing to my MP as well.
By the way, The Wizard of Oz is one of my all time favourite movies!
The unfortunate supposition is that the men behind our curtain believe they are, “Very good men, just very bad wizards.” This train veered off track when the idea of energy sustainability became the vehicle for agitprop activists to overthrow capital finance. The virtual designers of this attack figured to break energy monopolies via “carbon” taxes and redistribute it to their political ideologues. In other words, the science got kidnapped by politics.
Unlike the Wizard of Oz, our activists, on the cusp of having the curtain thrown back – are fighting tooth and nail to avoid global embarrassment. The giant smoke and mirror publicity machine is wheezing its way toward a wall of disbelief – there to be confronted by cries of, “Humbug!”
I thought the UK’s Royal Society might have comment on this business. It was readily apparent (under “climate”) at http://www.royalsociety.org that they are simply an extension of the IPCC. It is worse than the National Academy of Sciences here in the US.
I suppose it should not be a surprise that these organizations, as extensions of their respective governments, have become purely political instead of scientific.
Walter
And that is exactly why they have to deal with FOI requests and they have someone in charge of answering FOI requests. FOI requires open access to information from such organizations.
The saying “British Rubbish” that was used to describe the technical quality of British made cars in the seventies and the eighties, now applies to the weather and climate forecasts made by the Met Office. Sounds good hey, “British Rubbish”!
I’ve just signed too. I know it’s only open to UK citizens, but could you maybe place the link higher up please Anthony?
The petition has the name wrong – it’s Climatic Research Unit and seems to be mixed up between CRU (part of Univ of East Anglia) and the Met Office. This should be rectified or it will be used to discredit the petition.
Dear Marion Archer, FOI Manager,
Thank you for your carefully worded rejection of the FOI request.
Although you and your superiors likely think it read as an adequate and legitimate rationale for the rejection it is the stuff of an entirley corrupted public institution.
Any half wit can read right through the lens of deceit you thought would serve you well.
I can only hope that someday, somehow, and soon, you and yours will be held accountable with genuine and harsh consequences for your actions.
CRU has also refused to provide the data on the basis that their confidentiality agreements prevent distribution to “non-academics”. See CA today for details.
I would not be surpized if the issue were more to do with sloppy data management rather than temp bias. Before sites like WUWT, govt temp agencies were pretty sleepy organizations with very little public accountability. As a result, internal data handling and processing may have not very crisp.
If possible, one might try requesting a more modern dataset and methodology, something they could clean up with a couple of months work (ie, in the sense of properly documenting, not manupulating), say, last 5-10 years and current methodology.
I would also make a ‘going-forward’ request, ie, that going forward they provide all data and methodology. This would create internal pressure to clean up their processes and provide them a reason to seek additional funding, if necessary, from the government to achieve suitable data management and processing integrity. That’s a healthy kind of pressure.
It’s not everything, but it would move the boulder in the right direction.
The scientific work relies on repetibility. For doing this, the authors of an investigation or database must to disclose the process and raw data so other scientists know the methodology, including details from the experimentation is it was part of the process of investigation, and repeat the process. If the results coincide on the main observation and statistically the results match, although not exactly, the work of those researchers is admited. If there are deep differences between the results of the original work and the results of the replicas of the original work, the original conclusions or the whole investigation is rejected.
An honest scientist must not evade the scrutiny of other scientists. Otherwise, the work of that scientist who evade the scrutiny is considered a hoax.
As I understand it, the Met Office is part of the Ministry of Defence. I am therefore not surprised that they want to keep things secret, even when there is no point.
Three letters.
M.
O.
D.
That is who we are dealing with here. Climate is weather as far as the armed forces are concerned. Weather is a matter of national security.
The Royal Navy started it, since first ruling the waves.
Civil Servants enforce it by waving the rules.
HM Governments perpetuate it by waiving the rules.
The Met Office/HadCRU merely supports them all, and it, for (computing)power and money. Same as it ever was.
And as this provides another (among many) reason to be skeptical, the Team and their AGW congregation remain agast at anyone who would remain skeptical with such solid science establishing the legitimacy and urgency of AGW.
How is it that those accepting AGW and sounding alarms do not show ANY signs of any skeptisism or curiosity at all?
There are plenty of reasons to at least be curious enough to require some additional answers and science before proceeding with the CO2 reducing agenda.
and r k at all. whpper
“Why should I make the data available to you, when your aim is to try and find something wrong with it.”
That’s so typical of scientists. I remember when Einstein wouldn’t tell anyone the secret formula to determine how much energy is contained in matter, because all of the other scientists would just try to poke holes in the equation.
Wait, no I don’t.
He can fuzz up the locations, but really now. With Google Earth, the location of everything is known to sufficient accuracy that the latitude and longitude really do not matter. Why should you release data so that people can poke holes in it? Very simple. That is the scientific method. You observe something, you make a hypothesis, you make a prediction based on the hypothesis/model and then you test the prediction. If he does not care to release the data, it should be totally ignored in all forms. If he doesn’t he is guilty of malfeasance in science and a quack.
My neck hurts from shaking my head so much…
“I won’t share my data and methods with anyone because then they will know what I did and what I found.”
To me, this is a glaring indication that that something that was done was improper and/or that what was found does not support the “preferred” hypothesis.
The most honorable scientist is one who publishes findings (and methods) that disprove hypotheses that he supported. Come to think of it, any scientist who shrinks from this duty is not truly a scientist at all.
SEY
Re Canada’s weathernetwork.com, I had noted over a year ago that when they gave their 14 day forecast on TV they usually had a rising trend for the last 3 to 5 days, presumably because we had been having subnormal temperatures at least since fall 2007 and they felt that things had to average out to normal. I emailed them without getting a response that I had been taking their 14 day forecasts and knocking off a couple of degrees C for the latter part and had a much better forecasting record than they did over the course of a year (this is still going on). I even got fancier and began forecasting rain because of this reduced temp and my family and neighbors have begun asking me what I think the weather will be like for their trip to Toronto or Halifax!
I suggest taking Hadley detailed forecasts over the past couple of years, recording the deviation -/+ and I’ll bet you come up with the IPCC trend as the factor.
Isn’t that just lovely: Declaring the Weather, man’s favorite alltime topic, to be classified.
How absurd. Especially when the long-range forecast coming out of said office is so poor.
Henry Galt (08:11:48) :
Three letters.
M.
O.
D.
That is who we are dealing with here. Climate is weather as far as the armed forces are concerned. Weather is a matter of national security.
Yes but… What’s the purpose of the information they disclose to the public domain? Isn’t the Army passing it like climate science? Aren’t they supporting AGW propaganda? If they do wish to maintain the information under “TS” information, what’s the purpose on scaring people with global warming, climate change, etc., through “TS” data, if the data that they offer like “science” could be deeply flawed or even could be pseudoscience?
If they do wish to maintain their methodology and raw databases in secret, why offering it as science if their behavior is unscientific? They should stay silent and not terrorize the public with possibly false data which even does not coincide with reality and with other of their own sources of information.
When I offer the results of an experimentation or observation, I am compelled to describe the process, the raw data, the process of “cleaning” the raw data, etc. for other scientist can verify that what I am arguing is true. Why they do not feel compelled to do what we all are forced to do?
AGW ain’t science, it’s propaganda.
Some station data provided to Had/CRU may have been done so with the understanding that they be kept confidential. For example, I have been told that the Italian Province of Sicily only provides station data for the most recent four days and only provides historical station on request. I was told this several weeks ago by my cousin a hydrologist at the University of Palermo in Sicily and thus a reliable source of information on such matters. If this case is not unique, then it might be impossible for Had/CRU to release all of their acquired station data used in calculating their temperature anomaly data to the general public even if they wanted to. However, there is no reasonable reason for them to withhold their methodology from the general public since such knowledge is in the public interest.
I’m sure that the UK temperature data suffers from all the same problems associated with GISS. Driving around the country you see weather stations all along main highways. There is one at the junction of the A29 and the A24 in Surrey. Approximately 51degrees 10minutes 19.66 seconds North and 0 degrees 19 minutes 5.79 seconds west ( you can’t see it in Google Earth because the resolution is too low). being that close to these main roads must affect the temperature readings. You can also see then along the A303 across Salisbury Plain. I think that the Met Office will resist attempts to release the data because they probably fear ridicule much like Hansen and the GISS data
All “data” must be made transparent.
Jones et. al. (1986) variously preformed subjective homogeneity
procedures to temperature data at some U.S. stations. At others not.
There were obvious unaddressed problems.
Addationally, much of the Jones et. al./HADCRU research was funded
by the U.S. DOE.
Steve,
I know this route may not be flavour of the month, but you could try to find out if the MP Peter Lilley would help. You may need to find a constituent for him to do it directly, but I have had email conversations with him, he’s a bloke who is clued up on the science and I’m sure would be interested in finding out why this is being treated as a state secret
@ moderator
I have second thoughts about my previous posts, please delete the posts at (09:26:05) and (09:29:25) as well as this one.
[snip, as requested]
[REPLY – Done. No problem. ~ Evan]
To summarize then:
” yada, yada, yada, no you can’t have it.”
“Yours sincerely,
Marion Archer
FOI Manager”
This double- much like -talk me to so sounds.
Excellent questions/observations.
Steve M and all , I know the petition is imperfect , but the catch all is in the ” publicly funded” part. I was a little “tired and confused” when I submitted it, and the site allows no editing unfortunately .
For British readers who think it will be any better next year, check out one of the earlier posts I made concerning correspondence from Cameron. I also have letters from Osborne and my local MP.
I have sent the FOI response from Steves site to the Times, Daily Mail, and Daily Telegraph , hopefully Christopher Booker will pick up on it.
Perhaps most surprisingly, I posted it on a BBC blog, and it was allowed to stay up there !!!
I request that interested readers spend a little less time complaining and a little more time sending FOI requests. I’m asking CA readers to send FOI requests for the supposed confidentiality agreements for 5 separate countries. See http://www.climateaudit.org/?p=6618 for a proposed letter and information in the comments on countries that have been requested so far. We just started.
Hoskald (05:28:18) :
Question: If the GISS and the HadCrut datasets are both suspect what global temp dataset can be used to determine long-term global trends?
******************
Until something better is available, try this for global average temperatures:
Use UAH Lower Tropospheric temperature anomalies (LT) from 1980 forward.
Pre-1980, use Hadcrut 3 Surface Temperature anomalies (ST), but subtract 0.07C per decade, starting from zero in 1980.
correction (I think – need coffee)
Pre-1980, use Hadcrut 3 Surface Temperature anomalies (ST), but ADD 0.07C per decade to ST anom, starting from zero in 1980.
It looks like the only way the Hadley center can discharge its responsibilities is to dump all the data it cannot disclose (including the data they aren’t certain they can disclose), and rework the entire temperature anomaly product with whatever data remains. Anything less is malfeasnace.
If they can’t do anything with the remaining useable data, they should get out of the temperature business altogether.
The fact that they are in this position is their own doing.
E.M.Smith (02:13:22) :
“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…”
Unless things have changed drastically, and very recently, all permanent USAF stations with runways that report weather, have an ICAO call sign and WMO Block/Station numbers assigned. Location, elevation, runway lengths, runway directions, reporting codes, and all observations are freely available worldwide. Most (all?) are part of the normal WMO relay around the world.
The only guess we can do about it is that if such an esoteric data is disclosed it will prove global warming was wrong (and they too).
“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”
Data that is more than a month old is not any military secret. Ok, say you have a military airport that has weather data. Now say there is a town 5 miles from that airport. Why would the temperature at the air base in 1994 still be secret while the temperature of the town is not?
The entire argument is silly. Are you saying that by knowing the lat/long of a weather station you can bomb an air base? “Secret” airbases are clearly marked on maps by being surrounded with “restricted” air space. Knowing exactly where a thermometer is located within that air space tells you nothing. They can obfuscate the name if they wish to prevent association of a name to a location. They can simply call them Area 50, Area 51, Area 52, etc.
Steve should make his own Sooper Sekret temperature database that shows temperatures plunging at a rate of 8 degrees/century! Oh, wait … that’s NCDC’s contiguous US database, never mind.
“Bill: May-June in Gloucestershire was sunny and hot – we had a number of bbqs”
I admire the English: Gordon Brown for his competence and honesty, Chubby Brown for his humor, and everybody for the fact that they go outside in short sleeves while I have to wear a pullover.
Steve McIntyre (10:16:24) :
I request that interested readers spend a little less time complaining and a little more time sending FOI requests. I’m asking CA readers to send FOI requests for the supposed confidentiality agreements for 5 separate countries. See http://www.climateaudit.org/?p=6618 for a proposed letter and information in the comments on countries that have been requested so far. We just started.
I think many of us would like to send FOI request; but many of us are not UK citizens.
“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.”
So they have no ‘written procedures’ for this data??
We should also request copies of all the correspondence concerning the FOI requests (including emails) between Dr. Phil Jones and the Met Office and between Jones and his Freedom of Information officer, David Palmer, at the University of East Anglia.
Let’s find out what they are saying to each other about the requests for information.
bill (05:31:50) :
“Sad Science (02:50:26) :
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
What a load of tosh!!!
May-June in Gloucestershire was sunny and hot – we had a number of bbqs
July has been wet cold hot sunny in equal proportions (didn’t wimbledon not get rained off this year?)”
I live next door in Worcestershire. We had a hot week in June. The rest has been unexceptional standard British summer.
I live on the top floor with a flat roof. In the heat wave years (2003, etc.) the temperature in my bedroom by late evening was frequently well into the 30’sC. This year it just about made 26C in June. Now it’s 23C, and that’s high for the rest of June & July. I haven’t altered anything to cause this difference, so the comparison is valid if not the numbers.
I reckon you have some wishful thinking there.
Boudu (04:07:30) :
Surely a British government agency wouldn’t ’sex up’ the facts to improve their case or for political gain ?
The last time the Brit bureaucrats ‘sexed up’ the facts’, excuse me, got caught sexing up the facts, it resulted in one suicide and the top two BBC execs being made redundant.
We need to get MEP Daniel Hannan to press the info release case in the EU Parliament.
It is not in the UK socialist government’s interests to release what might be embarassing information. Hence, the outright refusal to give up the numbers for examination from a government funded agency. Naturally, there is no bias or conflict of interest issues involved – yeah right.
Don’t expect any change when the other lot get in next year. Cameron is hot for the warmist camp too. I won’t be voting for him either.
“Against the assault of laughter nothing can stand.”–Mark Twain
Somewhat OT. Along about 1967, Moscow’s WMO comm center had a some sort of problem and couldn’t provide the Suitland, MD center with Soviet data.
Suitland (WxBureau) asked the USAF automated relay (KAWN) at Tinker AFB in those days, for any/all Soviet data, and we complied. Suitland then transmitted that same data to Moscow.
Moscow told Suitland that this data had reports from places in the USSR that they didn’t even know reported weather.
This data was 100% unclassified.
UK Sceptic (11:59:16) :
“Don’t expect any change when the other lot get in next year. Cameron is hot for the warmist camp too. I won’t be voting for him either.”
You’re right there.
I reckon you should form a ‘Fylde Independence Party.” You wouldn’t need a very deep ditch.
He He
CALL TO ACTION:
We are engaging in FOI to david palmer to get the data released.
See this comment:
http://www.climateaudit.org/?p=6623#comment-350274
Send an email to
david.palmer at uea.ac.uk:
SUBJECT: EIR/FOI request.
Dear Mr Palmer,
I hereby make a EIR/FOI request in respect to any confidentiality agreements)restricting transmission of CRUTEM data to non-academics involving the following countries: [insert 5 countries .. see the list here ftp://ftp.ncdc.noaa.gov/pub/data/gsod/ ]
1. the date of any applicable confidentiality agreements;
2. the parties to such confidentiality agreement, including the full name of any organization;
3. a copy of the section of the confidentiality agreement that “prevents further transmission to non-academics”.
4. a copy of the entire confidentiality agreement,
I am requesting this information for the purposes of academic research.
Thank you for your attention.
Yours truly,
yourname
Right now over at Climate audit we are coordinating our efforts, BUT the more the merrier. If we get some overlap in requests that is ok. If your last name starts with A-M, start at the top of the list: N-Z start at the bottom.
There are 288 countries. This should be easier than surface stations.
OK, so environmentalists in the UK have been called, taleban, socialists, etc etc.
Nice to see you care.
Being a UK resident I can say I have an interest in this.
I also applied to obtain information from the METO/ECMWF, one and the same in reality.
There are some very complicated comerciality agreements in place with the METO across Europe and Africa, where co-operation and pooling of data including temperature, sat data and Military data takes place.
You can in some circumstances buy the data but again you have a lot of restrictions based on you.
I don’t agree it’s right to block the data from the tax payers that really pay for it to be collected anyway, BUT this has been the case with the METO since the 70’s and really goes back to the bizarre way that data was hoarded and not made known during the COLD war.
This should be updated but nobody has been bothered to re-write the articles, btw the commercial agreements work both ways i.e Morocco are not allowed to publish the data that the METO gives them.
The temperature data is no exception to the above. There is no conspiracy or lack of science just a rather useless UK civil service unfortunately.
BTW this data goes nowhere near the government there are no civil servants above a grade 5 involved anywhere near this data.
For the UK summer all you can say is that temperatures have been above average and sunshine has been above average, which sounds pretty good to me.
“Resolution 40, was adopted unanimously by the 12th Congress of the World Meteorological Organisation (WMO). This resolution foresees, as far as the international exchange of meteorological data and products are concerned, that “members should provide to the research and education communities, for their non-commercial activities, free and unrestricted access to all data and products exchanged under the auspices of WMO”, free and unrestricted meaning ‘non-discriminatory and without charge, …, at no more than the cost of reproduction and delivery'”
The WMO as well as most European countries quite clearly states that the data can only be sent out freely for academic countries, this really is the “norm”. I have to say that the US(noaa) is probably the most open organisation I have ever come across.
The answer is simply to write a paper with a UK university comparing say the methodology of HADCRU to that of GISS ?.
Therefore it can then be released under the WHO orders.
What’s an “academic country”, Iceberg?
I wonder what they have to hide?
Maybe all that missing heat that was supposed to be in the pipeline?
The Met office is part of the Ministry of Defence and so an american based web site can either like it or lump it as it pays no revenue’s to pay for it.
Sorry for being so blunt, but it’s true.
If you think they are wrong then get data from elsewhere.
Regards
Andy
Reply: Steve McIntyre, the originator of this request is Canadian, from a member of the British Commonwealth, and legally entitled to this this data under the FOI requests. ~ctm
AndyW35,
What’s your excuse for the British citizens who made the same request?
Like I said, this web site can like it or lump it because it has no political right to question how the MOD operates. Neither does Steve McIntyre as he hasn’t a vote nor pays UK taxes as far as I am aware.
For people who say what about the British citizens then this is part of the defence agency and they can tell you to go jump in a lake if they so want to, have a look at the FOI act and all the get out clauses !
I don’t care how much you want it, having lived in the UK for 40 years you ain’t going to get it.
Regards
Andy
This is fairly typical of FOI acts in the US. You have to be prepared to go the distance. Is Steve going to request a review?
“…… your aim is to try and find something wrong with it.”
Where does one start ?. The purpose of publishing your results and conclusions is to allow replication of your results and thus PROOF of your conclusions. It is up to the writer of the paper to be confident in the robustness of the conclusion and thus offer it up for others to attempt to pick holes in it. If you are too afraid that your conclusion will collapse under scrutiny – too bad – your conclusion is merely a piece of puffery and desrves to be discarded.
That is how science advances.
Free the CRU data!
head over here
http://www.climateaudit.org/?p=6623
And please make a request to CRU under FOI to free the data.
last time we did this we got the IPCC to post the comments on the AR4.
Anybody can do this. You don’t need to be a British citizen or a scientist.
The data belongs to all of us, but only if we show them we care.
AndyW35 (14:41:47),
Anyone familiar with human nature knows that if the Met office was on the up-and-up, they would be happy to show the taxpaying public their documentation. The Met Office is hiding the fact that they’ve been diddling with the data and methodology, and they are terrified of being found out.
So they stonewall. You probably would too, if you were in their uncomfortable position.
My barbecue is rusting, I want the MET to pay for a new one!
I’ve devised a new method for determining historic temperatures and I’m certain Phil Jones has done a pretty honest job with SST’s. Haven’t tested global V3 yet.
Lets face it – ‘redacting’ FOI official data takes time…
……..warning , and if I am wrong , apologies in advance. The iceberg , may well be a known troll from various other sites.
I think I’ve cracked it.
Check it out
http://s630.photobucket.com/albums/uu21/stroller-2009/?action=view¤t=temp-hist-80.gif
AndyW35 (14:41:47) :
“this is part of the defence agency and they can tell you to go jump in a lake if they so want to, have a look at the FOI act and all the get out clauses !”
They could. But it’s doubtful we would comply as the location of the lake is also a ‘climate secret.’
Re: 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.
“… find something wrong with it.” is the whole point! To wit, from wikipedia
“Falsifiability or refutability is the logical possibility that an assertion can be shown false by an observation or a physical experiment… Falsifiability is an important concept in science and the philosophy of science.
Some philosophers and scientists, most notably Karl Popper, have asserted that a hypothesis, proposition, or theory is scientific only if it is falsifiable.”
By refusing to release his data for an attempt to “falsify” it, then is Dr. Jones admitting his results are not science?
[REPLY – Yes. Be it right or be it wrong. But whatever it isn’t, by definition, without falsifiability, it is alchemy, not science. ~ Evan]
1. Yes, it is scandalous how leading climate scientists do not make their data and analysis subject to replication and verification.
2. It is even more scandalous how MSM lets them gets away with this.
3. It is profoundly disturbing that politicians are willing to rely on this analysis as they implement measures that have profound adverse implications for the economy — and (so far) for the environment and national security.
4. I wonder if instead of continuing to bash GW pessimists on these matters, whether somebody with expertise and data algorithms could comment on how UAH is diverging from RSS & GISS & HadCrut — the latter three seem to have very similar decadal trends over the last 3 decades.
Alright Tallbloke, explain yourself. 🙂
Henry Galt (08:11:48) :
Three letters. M. O. D. That is who we are dealing with here. Climate is weather as far as the armed forces are concerned. Weather is a matter of national security.
Nonsense. Even in the middle of the cold war, bomber pilots of all countries involved had current weather data for the countries they might be visiting.
AndyW35 (14:41:47)
Well, you forget that we succeeded in getting the CRU station names.
The Iceberg (12:53:11) :
“For the UK summer all you can say is that temperatures have been above average and sunshine has been above average, which sounds pretty good to me.”
Source? I watch London and surrounds every day, most days are like today,
either close to average high/low or below, 21/13C in London with an average of 23/15C.
http://weather.msn.com/local.aspx?&wealocations=wc%3aUKXX0085&q=London%2c+GBR&setunit=C
AndyW35 – “The Met office is part of the Ministry of Defence and so an american based web site can either like it or lump it as it pays no revenue’s to pay for it”
What about an American academic then? Peter Webster of Georgia Tech has been supplied with the data free of charge. Presumably he holds a Top Secret, appropriately caveated British MOD security clearance.
Your thoughts?
Is this the same Jones of the 1990 paper on the UHI Effect used by the IPCC to set the UHI effect to 0.05 degrees celcius per century?
The Brits wear short sleeves in cold weather because they wear short trousers when at school. It’s part of grit your teeth and bare it. They are an endearing lot whose bureaucratic pecularities were hilariously exposed in “Yes, Minister” et seq..
Learning time. Sir Humphrey: “Minister, anything is possible, but nothing is possible for the first time”.
Lesson. Find a precedent. Looks like Steve Mc found one in prior releases to others. Look for more disclosures to other parties. Ask your local Met Office (if outside GB) if they receive or have received back copies of data from CRU after treatment by CRU.
Further action. If you are a non-Brit, ask your Government to write to Met Office or to UK Ministerial counterparts asking for the data. Ask your local member of there is any formal agreement for the supply of climate data from your contry to CRU. Ask for a copy of it, under your own country FOI if needed. But in all of this , be patient and logical and explain why you are concerned and why the quality of this science needs to be audited. In terms that politicians can understand. (= there are votes in it).
Having worked for decades at the interface of serious business and politics, I can sense that the Met Office has lost it by now. One more push now, puff, press down …..
http://www.xcweather.co.uk/GB/observations
The above site is used by cross country glider pilots. Roll over the arrows and you get current weather from sites including operational RAF stations.
Also take a look at this RAF Lynham
http://www.hurford.me.uk/weather.asp
“The information presented here is taken from products produced by the U.S. National Weather Service and other national and international agencies”
(EGDL) 51-30N 001-59W 0M – Isn’t this a location?????????
RAF Lynham not the biggest secret in the world
http://www.raf.mod.uk/raflyneham/
Also take a look at this RAF Lynham
http://weather.noaa.gov/weather/current/EGDL.html
“The information presented here is taken from products produced by the U.S. National Weather Service and other national and international agencies”
(EGDL) 51-30N 001-59W 0M – Isn’t this a location?????????
RAF Lynham not the biggest secret in the world
http://www.raf.mod.uk/raflyneham
Sorry about the first link
http://weather.noaa.gov/weather/GB_cc.html
Contains 35 locations that I recognise as military
Roddy Baird (21:39:35) :
Alright Tallbloke, explain yourself. 🙂
I think I’ll save it for a more appropriate thread. Please join up and comment/question here where it can be ongoing.
http://climaterealists.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=318&p=5969#p5969
Using Google Earth, I can nearly always pick out an ASOS on a military airbase.
This is oh so bad. I’m a UK taxpayer and paying for this lot.
I have some knowlegde of FOI requests. I seriously doubt whether a foreign power providing info would put such caveats on it, this is not senstive criminal/ fiscal/ defence information.
They have something to hide.
This matter is so important because of not only the enviroment , but the billions of taxpayers money that could get wasted if we make unecessary changes to our society
Well, this is a bad bit of news. The more the Met Office resists, the more I have to believe there IS something wrong with the HadCRUT data. Twenty-five years of work is no excuse; it belongs to the British public and foreigners can also request such data. Funny how they are trying to rationalize this as “defense information” among other things. It is only a defense of the indefensible.
I don’t really understand the problem with the methodology behind the Jones temperature data. Station data vary in quality and have to be processed before being compared with each other and, because the distribution of stations in space is very uneven, processing has to be done to remove the resulting local bias. The methods for doing this are not difficult to understand by anyone with post-graduate level statistics, and are very well documented in published climatology literature. Similarly, there are numerous sets of station temperature data that are freely downloadable for various parts of the world. Anyone seriously wanting to recreate Jones’ method and test his results can easily do so for a small part of the globe and publish any apparent discrepancies in the literature. This is the correct way to do a scientific comparison: get your own independent station data, decide on the best methods for creating the gridded data, and then compare your results with Jones. It’s that simple: no secrecy, no conspiracy, just lots of lovely, freely available methods, software (under R), and station data.