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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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.