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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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
@ur momisugly 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.