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.
Please Anthony, don’t destroy the data. It is a collection of facts, which cannot be copyrighted. Science is empirical. We cannot make an informed decision about the validity of the global warming threat if we cannot assess the data for ourselves. If the numeric analysis is true, then we can all feel like asses. But if it is cooked, then we have just derailed the biggest swindle in the history of mankind. They are trying to tax our /air/!
Secrecy it the darkness where cockroaches breed. Nothing ensures the truth like transparency! Anthony, the data you hold will alter the future of man kind.
“One data set to rule them all, one set to find them, one set to bring them all, and in the darkness binds them.”
Ok, so a little mellow dramatic, but it is true that in the darkness we are bound.
I bet I know what the raw data shows: Much the same as what NOAA raw data shows compared with adjusted.
NOAA USHCN1 raw data shows 0.14C warming for the last century+, average for each station. The adjusted version (FILNET) shows 0.59C warming per station, average. USHCN2, adjusted, shows 0.72C warming.
What happens when these dudes get their hands on raw data? Positive feedback.
Paul (12:55:36):
That’s not what this is all about. This is about releasing the data after you’ve analyzed it and published your findings, so others can replicate your analysis. No one steals your research and publishes findings before you do.
RE: Smokey (12:56:25)
I’m not even going to start discussing that topic. I have my own opinions, and they vastly diverge from Mr. McIntyre’s.
I could care less if what Steve wants to do with data provided to the public. If he acquired the data legally, I’d say have at it. However, he still got the data illegally.
You wrote: “Aren’t you interested in finding out if the Met is “adjusting” the data for its own self-serving reasons?”
You apparently haven’t worked at a major scientific government institutions or known any prominent scientists. The idea that all climate scientists throughout the world are doctoring their data and coming to the same false conclusion to secure that next grant is laughable.
So will St. Mac be applying a MOLNET adjustment?
Has this reached the MSM in the US ?
Here in the UK , nothing , nada , zilch B****R ALL ! Despite my best efforts .
In many ways , it is of no matter the outcome of the analysis ( Although the mole must consider SM is on to something to send the info) it is the visibility that is most important , and the accountability of public servants.
I think the next step should be to file FOI requests concerning the confidentiality agreements. Once you know what data is covered by those agreements a new FOI request can be submitted that omits all data covered by those agreements. Hopefully the missing data can be retrieved through other means.
Paul,
Yes you would be right to feel peeved if your data was released before you could analyse it. But Jones and CRU analysed their original data years ago and it has been used and updated since as the basis for IPCC projections. But no one is able to study that data or comment on how it has been interpreted because of the restrictions placed on it. No such restrictions are made on GISS data, for example.
This is the 21st Century, Jones, CRU and the UK Met Office are behaving as if we were still in the world of the 1950s. Moreover, it is increasingly difficult not to believe, the longer he obfuscates, that Jones’ restrictions on his data hide something far more fundamental
“…damage the trust that scientists have in those scientists who happen to be employed in the public sector…”
The trust in those scientists has already been damaged beyond repair.
“…interfere with the “effective conduct of international relations…”
What about the “effective conduct” of the truth?
“…hamper the ability to protect and promote United Kingdom interests through international relations…”
I’m more concerned the interests of the UK taxpayers are being manipulated to the detriment of said taxpayers, me being one of them.
“…seriously affect the relationship between the United Kingdom and other Countries and Institutions…”
Aww diddums! If you can’t take the heat get then hell out of the kitchen!
Jerry: Thanks for the “Get Smart” reference. I immediately had vision of Max and The Chief and the Cone of Silence, then quickly found this:
If you really want to know all about the nitty gritty stuff in the CET data set I’m in a position to tell you about it. I’ve studied the MET Office monthly publication of CETs now on a monthly or more frequent basis since 1994, I’d guess, and have run many hundreds if not thousands of assorted analyses. Be assured that the published historical data have not changed in the slightest from year to year – at least as far as I can tell. What I have learned in general terms is that that temperatures in Central England have increased from time to time, in general by abrupt steps which are frequently followed (and preceded) by remarkably stable regimes of greatly varying durations, and decreased also. The ubiquity of this sort of behaviour suggests to me that any attempt at “forecasting” CET values is doomed to failure. It is NOT a simple time series. The occurrence of the step changes is not signalled by previous observations. It just seems to happen randomly, presumably controlled or induced by some effect that no-one has so far been able to identify. My detailed studies of atmospheric CO2 concentrations fail signally to show any sign of step changes of any size or frequency. Major indices, such as PDO, readily disclose a step or steps, but not ones that appear to be simply related to local England temperature data, though the PDO is /very/ closely associated with Alaskan temperatures.
It is all very complex, and the new “secrecy” revelations are a wonderful source for story ideas which I am greatly enjoying, but the CET data are I believe not being deliberately manipulated in any way.
Robin
Hopefully, the next time CA or WUWT gets “secret” data from a “mole” nothing will be said about it in public. The “mole” is owed that much consideration.
FWIW, I would never give out “protected” data to individuals or groups that would publish the fact on the world wide web for gosh sakes. Thus, were I a potential mole, you guys and gals would be off my list.
Meantime, in this case, the auditors could have remained “silent” and worked on the data in secret. Perhaps divulging what they found, perhaps not — depending on future legal and ethical circumstances.
Just an opinion from a supporter of CA and WUWT.
Disseminating weather data only damages its commercial value if it is released in real time. A good example is weather radar data. Some commercial services provide weather data in real time with no delay for a service fee. The same weather radar data is available free to all on a small time delay.This way radio and TV stations can give some commercial value to the interpretation of that real time weather data, but the general public has full exposure to the data some 15 minutes or so later when free public sources like the NOAA internet feeds update.
If there are distribution limitations they should only limit the data in the time domain, so that for profit organizations can justifiably charge a fee for limited access products. There is no commercial value to yesterdays high temperature, or rainfall amount, let alone last years or a decade ago.
Copyright law also includes a doctrine of “fair use” that includes inclusion of copyrighted material for “news reporting” and “education”. Both of which are served by whattsupwiththat, as it would be very newsworthy if the data was doctored (or for that mater it was shown it was valid), and one of the primary function of this web blog is education on subjects scientific.
I would suspect that international copyright treaties support and honor the fair use doctrine, as it is used world wide for book reviews and in news stories all the time.
Thumbs up to Anthony on his efforts and I am sure one way or another the truth will “out”.
Larry
Mr. McIntyre wrote, “…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.”
I think the UK Met Office has said more about their public-sector scientists than they meant.
but – we are in for further heatwaves: 😮
http://www.theage.com.au/environment/get-ready-for-a-global-heatwave-20090728-e03j.html
Pull the other leg, Steve.
Folks, read this latest edict from the Met Office through the good offices of The Telegraph:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/earthnews/5925523/World-temperatures-set-for-record-highs.html
Extract: “The new study adds the effect of El Nino, which is entering a new warm phase and of the impact of the solar cycle.
Gareth Jones, a climate research scientist at the Met Office, said the effect of global warming is unlikely to be masked by shorter term weather patterns in the future.
He said that 50 per cent of the 10 years after 2011 will be warmer than 1998. After that any year cooler than 1998 will be considered unusual.
“The amount of warming we expect from human impacts is so huge that any natural phenomenon in the future is unlikely to counteract it in the long term,” he said.”
So the “heat” Steve McIntyre is exposed to from the Met Office is nothing compared with what is in store for us. The next El Nino will be dramatic and Solar Cycle 24 must be just about to wreck havoc on mother Earth.
this scenario really undermines the whole “trust science as objective observers” argument.
So many devious plotlines:
1. the Mole (actually a confederate of the AGW crowd) secrets intentionally bad data to the “deniers” knowing it will blow up in their face.
2. The MET knowingly lets the Mole get hold of the data (which they know to be corrupted, but he doesn’t), knowing he sides with the “deniers” but that they will fall for the ruse.
3. The MET doesn’t know that the data is corrupt, but they want to see where this leads, planning on a major sting of the Mole and Alan & Steve.
4. etc.
Paul (12:55:36) :
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.
Truth is the person is NOT self employed and he is paid by the people. He is paid for this. Gubment employees have this mythical theory of property ownership. Soldiers don’t get a jeep for a suvenior when they come home from battle.
Apart from John’s comment, which I agree 100% with, I would like to point out a verb you used in this sentence. You said “collecting” data. You also mentioned hypertension data in your post. Why do you think that the rightful owner of the data is the person who ‘collects’ it and not the person/people who actually took the measurements? (In this case, the doctors/nurses who treated the patients)
And what about the patients? It is his blood pressure, after all. Do you really think you are the rightful owner of the data just because you ‘collected’ it? And how do you get your paper published if you don’t provide the data you collected and analyzed?
Same applies to surface station temperatures. Do they belong to the people who took the measurements or to the people who collects them? You can argue that Professor Jones spent, say 20 years (I don’t know how long) collecting data. Other people may also argue that they spent the same time taking the measurements. You may say that these people got paid for taking the measurements, but also Professor Jones got paid, by the UK citizens, to collect the data. So, Who is the rightful owner of the data?
Does the Met Office data reveal why their “Barbeque Summer” prediction for the UK has resulted in cool temperatures and frequent rain?
Following along with great interest.
Especially the possibility of illegal activity in the removal of the data. Illegal as to crime, torts, breach of contract, and others. Problems of proof, especially introducing evidence, and proof of damages, and remedies are rampant. International law is at play.
For an attorney, this is indeed Fascinating.
Seems clear to me now that the “mole” was just a publicly available (oops) directory that Steve came across during a scraping exercise.
oops indeed.
“He said that 50 per cent of the 10 years after 2011 will be warmer than 1998. After that any year cooler than 1998 will be considered unusual.”
And as their data will be used to gauge their forecast for the 10 years after 2011, they can make it so by simply “adjusting” the data to fit the forecast. And as long as they never let anyone see the original data or the adjustment mechanism, they apparently believe they can get away with it.
Roger Sowell (15:09:31) :
pete m (15:43:06) :
—
Interesting attitude. Is withholding public data, paid for by public funds and being used (misused and distorted!!) to manipulate public policy to the detriment of billions of private citizens worldwide ethical?
Does a lawyer have ethics? Respect ethics?