In case you are just joining us, here is some background on the story below. I know the identity of the mole. The ball is now in CRU’s court. Steve McIntyre reports below and throws down the gauntlet.
More news on the Met Office/CRU molehunt.
Late yesterday (Eastern time), I learned that the Met Office/CRU had identified the mole. They are now aware that there has in fact been a breach of security. They have confirmed that I am in fact in possession of CRU temperature data, data so sensitive that, according to the UK Met Office, my being in possession of this data would, “damage the trust that scientists have in those scientists who happen to be employed in the public sector”, interfere with the “effective conduct of international relations”, “hamper the ability to protect and promote United Kingdom interests through international relations” and “seriously affect the relationship between the United Kingdom and other Countries and Institutions.”
Although they have confirmed the breach of security, neither the Met Office nor CRU have issued a statement warning the public of the newCRU_tar leak. Nor, it seems, have they notified the various parties to the alleged confidentiality agreements that there has been a breach in those confidentiality agreements, so that the opposite parties can take appropriate counter-measures to cope with the breach of security by UK institutions. Thus far, the only actions by either the Met Office or CRU appear to have been a concerted and prompt effort to cover up the breach of security by attempting to eradicate all traces of the mole’s activities. My guess is that they will not make the slightest effort to discipline the mole.
Nor have either the Met Office or CRU contacted me asking me not to further disseminate the sensitive data nor to destroy the data that I have in my possession.
By not doing so, they are surely opening themselves up to further charges of negligence for the following reasons. Their stated position is that, as a “non-academic”, my possession of the data would be wrongful (a position with which I do not agree, by the way). Now that they are aware that I am in possession of the data (and they are aware, don’t kid yourselves), any prudent lawyer would advise them to immediately to notify me that I am not entitled to be in possession of the data and to ask/instruct me to destroy the data that I have in my possession and not to further disseminate the sensitive data. You send out that sort of letter even if you think that the letter is going to fall on deaf ears.
Since I am always eager to help climate scientists with these conundrums, I’ll help them out a little here. If, prior to midnight Eastern time on Thursday, a senior executive of the Met Office or the University of East Anglia notifies me that I am in wrongful possession of the data and directly requests me to destroy my copies of the CRU station data in question and thereby do my part in the avoidance of newCRU_tar proliferation, I will do so.
I will, of course, continue my FOI requests since I do not believe, for a minute, that their excuses have any validity nor am I convinced that the alleged confidentiality agreements actually exist nor, if they exist, am I convinced that they prohibit the provision of the data to me.
Has the mole been fired?
I would say now is a great time to invest in popcorn futures.
Should not it be better, and easier, transparency?..in the land of Sherlock Holmes and haunted houses…:-)
Metaphorically speaking they know one day you will blow them and their phony stats out of the water Mr. McIntyre, so keep your aim steady, a cool head, (debunk torpedo’s loaded) and prepare to fire!!!
On a more serious note, I know you are altruistic and a dedicated man in pursuit of the truth, not given to cut and thrust of environmental (de)- activism do not be deflected, I for one (and many others I trust) am reliant upon your cogent, logical, forensic analyses.
At the end of the day what can they do??????
The met office today issued its forecast for what I thought was going to be the final one for the British summer. The story so far.
Summer forecast 2009
Tue 31 Mar 2009
Temperature
For the UK and much of Western Europe temperatures are likely to be near average
Rainfall
At this stage forecast signals are too weak to provide an outlook for summer rainfall.
Thursday 30 Mar 2009
Temperature
For the UK and much of Europe temperatures are likely to be above average.
Rainfall
For the UK and much of northern Europe rainfall is likely to be near or below average. A repeat of the wet summers of 2007 and 2008 is unlikely.
Average or below-average rainfall is also likely over Eastern Europe
Thursday 30 May 2009
Temperature
For the UK and much of Europe temperatures are likely to be above average
Rainfall
For the UK and much of western Europe rainfall is likely to be near or below average. A repeat of the very wet summers of 2007 and 2008 is unlikely.
Below-average rainfall is likely over eastern Europe.
Thursday 30 June 2009
Temperature
For the UK and much of Europe temperatures for the rest of the summer are likely to be above average
Rainfall
For the rest of summer, rainfall is likely to be near average over the UK. A repeat of the very wet summers of 2007 and 2008 remains unlikely.
Over other parts of western Europe rainfall is likely to be near average or above average, while below-average rainfall is favoured over much of eastern Europe.
Seems they’ve given up!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Early indications for Winter 2009/10
http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/science/creating/monthsahead/seasonal/2009/winter.html
Winter forecast 2009/10
Tue 31 Mar 2009
Temperature
Early indications are that winter temperatures are likely to be near or above average over much of Europe including the UK. For the UK, Winter 2009/10 is likely to be milder than last year.
Rainfall
Early indications are that winter precipitation is likely to be near or above average over much of northern Europe. For the UK, Winter 2009/10 is likely to be wetter than last year.
Fred from Canuckistan . . . (11:27:09) :
Episode 3: Revenge of MET
Episode 4: A New Mole
Episode 5: MET Strikes Back
Episode 6: Return of the Mole
I love it!
Go get em!
KlausB (10:49:52) : We’ll enjoy the movie. Title “The Good, the Bad and the Ugly”
Or “For a Few Dollars More”
Messrs. Watts and McIntyre:
I’m a UK citizen and you certainly haven’t damaged relations with me – quite the opposite. ” Hamper the ability to protect and promote UK interests through international relations” – complete nonsense! Keep up the good work.
It’s possible that some of the temperature data in question has been copyrighted. If one of the private temperature data providers has an international copyright on 72 degrees Fahrenheit or it’s Celsius equivalent, then Steve could be sued for damages.
Fight piracy. Destroy the data. Buy that DVD.
Re: Fred From Canuckistan 11:27
I would like to submit an additional epsisode synopsis for the sitcom.
Minister Hacker visits an Island to observe the effect of global warming on the Island’s Mole Population. While there he meets the local Climate Cleric and Parish Priest, Father Ted, who has persuaded all the islanders to abandon their cars in favour of Battery Powered Milk Floats….
That is a wonderful idea. A Sitcom, paying suitable homage to Yes Minister, but with Jim Hacker as the minister for Climate Change tasked with getting a Cap and Trade bill through the houses of parliament and being stymied by an independent senator (well Lord as it is the UK – Monckton perhaps)
Oops, sounds a bit like what is happening with Penny Wong and Senator Fielding in Australia.
Anthony, why not run a thread soliciting episode ideas, of no more than 200 words.
40 Coats
What a way to breed distrust of the AGW science…
I believe records of the confidentiality agreements themselves would be required to prove a criminal charge. Didn’t they say in response to the FOI request that such records were not kept and that they, in effect, “just knew” there were such agreements but weren’t sure what data was covered? This would place them in a bit of a double-bind because if they were to produce the agreements in order to press a criminal charge, it would mean they lied in response to the FOI request. So to press a criminal case they would need to admit to a crime.
And if the data Steve is in possession of was modified in any way to make it “unreliable”, then a crime has also been committed according to section to subsection c of The Computer Misuse Act (UK) of 1990.
There won’t be any criminal charges, I don’t believe, because they would need to admit having committed a crime to bring such charges.
“I wonder what’s going to happen next.” . . .
Episode 3 “The Hunt for Red HadCrut”.
A Russian double agent plans to defect but needs the help of top statitician Stevie Mack. Hilarious antics ensue as the mole and Stevie confuse authorities on all sides with the release of secret information, vital to national security, that turns out to be the train time-table for the East Coast Mainline.
Come on, three more synopses and we have a series !
Should never let the truth get out. People spent a lot of money on cover and now it leaks.
They will have to shame and destroy the leaker.
I am a statistician working on publicly funded grants (NIH). I realize this type of data (specifically, health data on hypertension) is not really interesting to most people, so we don’t have foreign researchers pounding down our doors for data. But we do not need to make our data public. This is so that our investigators can have the first crack at analyzing it. It would peeve me greatly to have spent the past 2 years working on collecting data only to have someone else take our research ideas and publish them. That said, we work with whoever is interested in analyzing the data. To me, it is not that interesting that they don’t want to make the data public. It is perplexing that they will not let you even have a small piece of the data or work with you on it. Ignorance is one thing, willfull ignorance is another.
Shoreliner11 (11:53:56) :
That is exactly what happened when Steve McIntyre analyzed very limited data and exposed Michael Mann’s bogus hockey stick, which the UN/IPCC had spread far and wide before they were forced to withdraw it when the truth came out.
Why are you concerned that Steve might get to the bottom of this stonewalling by the Met Office? Aren’t you interested in finding out if the Met is “adjusting” the data for its own self-serving reasons? Isn’t the truth everything in science?
If the Met Office has been truthful with the public, there is nothing they have to fear. They are acting scared.
Temperature data – a state secret?
I can see it now on the evening news –
Today’s high temp – Classified
Today’s low temp – Classified
Forecast for tomorrow’s weather – Classified
Unclassified guidance for tomorrow – Wear sweaters and have rain gear handy.
When are you going to realise – this is not secret data, it is COMMERCIAL data. i.e CRU would have an agreement not to pass it on to others as it would wreck its COMMERCIAL value. If they have allowed this commercial data to be distributed then they would have broken a legal agreement. Isn’t this obvious?!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Read this document the ECA have the same problem with almost half their data sources
http://eca.knmi.nl/documents/ECAD_report_2008.pdf
Climate variables
At present the data set includes series of
nine climate variables: daily …
About 52% of the series is publicly available
from the ECA&D website. The other
48% comes with restrictions: these series
are for ECA&D indices calculations and
gridding purposes only.
Data flow
Participant data comes in various file formats.
Importing this data into the database
tables is done by running relevant
scripts for the conversions. The conversions
differ for each data source. Dependent
on the permissions granted by the
data providers, data series can either be:
public, or for indices plus gridding only.
Public data are published on the web in
addition to the indices results.
Please give up on the secret jibes.
Judge White enjoined Wikileaks to “from displaying, posting, publishing, distributing, linking to and/or otherwise providing any information” that the Bank Julius Baer considers to be confidential. Now:
To further the cause of Science, and to ensure his efforts for posterity, perhaps Sir. MOLE would care to use the services of WikiLeaks.
In light of: Leaked Media Defender e-mails reveal secret government project
Sir. MOLE may also wish to explore the services of BitTorrent.
Leon Brozyna (12:56:59) : “Unclassified guidance for tomorrow – Wear sweaters and have rain gear handy.”
Wear sweaters? Who will need sweaters when global warming arrives. Oh wait, I forgot that cold weather is also caused by global warming.
Thanks for the reference Crosspatch
Here are some links:
GUIDANCE ON COMPUTER MISUSE ACT and
Computer Misuse Act 1990
1990 CHAPTER 18
Leon Brozyna (12:56:59) :
Temperature data – a state secret?
I can see it now on the evening news –
Today’s high temp – Classified
Today’s low temp – Classified
Forecast for tomorrow’s weather – Classified
Unclassified guidance for tomorrow – Wear sweaters and have rain gear handy.
We could tell ya, but then we’d have to kill ya!
How about we take a collection for the mole who is in the deepest of trouble.
He may get sentenced to siberia and hard labor. If it is siberia, he may need some beach chairs to enjoy the balmy weather going on up there soon.
Wearing my psychologist hat, I ponder the danger of humans knowing what the temps were. Will there be a lithium shortage diverting lithium from batteries to pills. Peak lithium.
Well done that mole for doing the decent thing and sharing the data we need.
I think that obfuscation wll be the order of the day until after Copenhagen for the Met and other clmate info providers. I’m just hoping that the current quiet sun will keep the winter weather really cold.
Meanwhile I see glimmers of CYA syndrome appearing in the press as our climate continues to ignore the IPCC climate models.