From Kate at Small Dead Animals: No U-turns allowed
Dear Tom,
I find it hard to believe that the British Antarctic Survey would permit the deletion of relevant files for two recent publications or that there aren’t any backups for the deleted data on institutional servers. Would you mind inquiring for me? In the mean time, would you please send me the PP format files that you refer to here for the monthly sea ice data for the 20th century models discussed in your GRL article and the 21st century models referred to in your JGR article.
Regards, Steve McIntyre
Then in July… “Unprecedented” Data Purge At CRU
On Monday, July 27, 2009, as reported in a prior thread, CRU deleted three files pertaining to station data from their public directory ftp.cru.uea.ac.uk/. The next day, on July 28, Phil Jones deleted data from his public file – see screenshot with timestemp in post here, leaving online a variety of files from the 1990s as shown in the following screenshot taken on July 28, 2009.
The Telegraph, today – Climategate: University of East Anglia U-turn in climate change row ….. Leading British scientists at the University of East Anglia, who were accused of manipulating climate change data – dubbed Climategate – have agreed to publish their figures in full….
Now, here comes the other shoe! Hide the Decline!
SCIENTISTS at the University of East Anglia (UEA) have admitted throwing away much of the raw temperature data on which their predictions of global warming are based.
It means that other academics are not able to check basic calculations said to show a long-term rise in temperature over the past 150 years.
The UEA’s Climatic Research Unit (CRU) was forced to reveal the loss following requests for the data under Freedom of Information legislation.
The data were gathered from weather stations around the world and then adjusted to take account of variables in the way they were collected. The revised figures were kept, but the originals — stored on paper and magnetic tape — were dumped to save space when the CRU moved to a new building.”
[…]
In a statement on its website, the CRU said: “We do not hold the original raw data but only the value-added (quality controlled and homogenised) data.”
The CRU is the world’s leading centre for reconstructing past climate and temperatures. Climate change sceptics have long been keen to examine exactly how its data were compiled. That is now impossible.
Andrew Bolt intv on ABC Insiders – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7WhTV0M-iNE
Here’s a thought for you.
In the well known film “The Great Escape” the prisoners in Stalag Luft 17 dig three tunnels to freedom under the wire…. Tom Dick and Harry. Harry was the only successful one. Where the other attempts? may be the e-mail to Hudson at the BBC was one of them
Make you think don’t it
I wonder if there is any chance this story is going to spill over into the workings of GISS?
Cold Englishman (04:02:12) :
“Can anyone identify “Harry”? I’m beginning to warm towards this fellow.”
Someone should write an updated version of the song, “Wild about Harry.”
If the journals that published papers for these guys demanded data and code, it would not be lost. Or at least the probability of it getting lost would be less.
Paul (05:14:19) :
“I propose we call this losing and manipulation of data phenomenon “Flat-earthing”.”
The mot juste is a “forcing.”
Cold Englishman: If you go to the CRU website http://www.cru.uea.ac.uk/cru/people/ you will see the staff. The only person with any programming skill is Mr Ian (Harry) Harris (he also does “data manipulation”!). Not that I’m pointing the finger. You’d have thought they needed more than one person with programming skills and not just as the last of several skills.
But it’s only the main programme relied on by the world leaders to decide to spend trillions of our money, so hardly worth more than a bit of part-time effort.
Inspired by jbrodhead ☺ ☺
http://photoshare.shaw.ca/image/2/d/8/63987/wxstationburndata-0.jpg
Wouldn’t it be something if the pre-pasteurized data was in some files in the remaining unreleased 100meg of FOI2009?
Lucy, you have some ‘splainin’ to do.
Who will or can provide now real data, if any, in the world?
Just a thought for Phil Jones.
Much as I hate what he has done, I hear he has had to ask for police protection.
We know that various skeptics have been threatened, some quite seriously, in the past. I know that the gentle greens very often have not the least inkling of the dark green side. I don’t want to be party to encouraging hate actions that I’ve not heard about but have been inspired by the material surfacing here.
Only this morning I became aware that despite my best intentions I’m not immune to inappropriate reactions. I am glad that the moderator was aware. Especially now I hear about Jones being threatened.
their statement gives a whole new (and WRONG!) meaning to “value-added”.
Apols if this has been posted before, but if you want to see an example of the lengths the British government will go to alarm people about AGW, this £6m advertising campaign was forced off the air after almost 400 complaints.
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/10/21/asa_climate_probe/
lookatthecode (06:29:07) :
“I give up, you deserve to lose.
FOR F***S SAKE
YOU HAVE A GOOGLE AD HELPING TO SAVE THE PLANET FROM GLOBAL
WARMING ON THE FRONT PAGE OF THE WEBSITE.
I agree, very confusing to new visitors, of which there are now hundreds of thousands. I suggested deleted Google Ads several times, but the website owner seems to prefer the money from Google, more than having a consistent and unconfusing appearance.
Craig (06:27:07) :
I have used “is the data” all my life, but there again I was brought up on Scottish English!
I’m beginning to feel that this house of cards is really coming down now.
Who do we have to thank for it? The MSM? HA! WHAT A JOKE!
Websites, especially CA, and this one did the heavy number crunching.
Great Thanks to the NEW MEDIA for getting the story out.
1. UK Telegraph
2. Drudge Report
3. Hot Air
4. American Thinker
5. Talk Radio, yes especially Rush Limbaugh, love him or hate him
6. FOX NEWS
7. And the all other numerous sceptic blogs, there are so many I could never list them all.
It still aint over, though. There’s a lot of work left to do. It is Davids vs Goliath. But David has the sling and the stone (THE TRUTH). and Goliath just got hit between the eyeballs, and he’s teetering.
I’m a man of modest means, and the financial crisis has hit me too. But I’m going to leave a tip to both CA and WUWT. We truly do have something to be thankful for this Thanksgiving season. Thanks again.
“When it comes to his handling of Freedom of Information requests, Professor Jones might struggle even to use a technical defence. If you take the wording literally, in one case he appears to be suggesting that emails subject to a request be deleted, which means that he seems to be advocating potentially criminal activity. Even if no other message had been hacked, this would be sufficient to ensure his resignation as head of the unit.
George Monbiot, Guardian 11/25/2009
“bryan clark (08:10:31) :
lookatthecode (06:29:07) :
“I give up, you deserve to lose.
FOR F***S SAKE
YOU HAVE A GOOGLE AD HELPING TO SAVE THE PLANET FROM GLOBAL
WARMING ON THE FRONT PAGE OF THE WEBSITE.
I agree, very confusing to new visitors, of which there are now hundreds of thousands. I suggested deleted Google Ads several times, but the website owner seems to prefer the money from Google, more than having a consistent and unconfusing appearance.”
Sorry Bryan, but if you were here when Anthony made that decision, you know it was one he did not take lightly. It takes time and money to keep a site like this (and CA) going, and not enough of us hitting the tip jar to fully support it. And if I recall correctly, it’s an all-or-nothing deal with the ads.
And if someone is going to base their entire opinion of a site like this that now is world-renown…on the ADS that run on the site?…well…that sort of speaks for itself, in my book.
This is what the University of East Anglia said about its CRU in 2008:
CRU key to setting environmental agenda
Thu, 5 Jun 2008
The University of East Anglia – in particular its Climatic Research Unit – is the only university to be included in a list of the key bodies that have set the environmental agenda in the UK over the past thirty years.
The influential ENDS (Environmental Data Services) Report, a regular policy briefing for business professionals, is celebrating its 30th anniversary with a fact-packed special supplement reviewing the fast changing UK environmental scene over the past three decades.
In it, it outlines the most important people, ideas and policies during this period. Among the government bodies, the pressure groups and the businesses, the supplement names just one university: ‘The University of East Anglia (and its Climate Research Unit)’.
It cites Professor Sir David King, the UK government’s former chief scientific adviser, who described the school of environmental sciences at UEA to be “the strongest in the world”.
And it says the Climatic Research Unit, established in 1972, “is widely recognised for navigating the study of climate change out of an academic backwater and has set the agenda for the major research effort in this area ever since.”
Among the most influential individuals, it includes University of East Anglia Professor of Environmental Science, Bob Watson (Defra’s chief scientific adviser and former head of the IPCC and climate adviser to the Clinton administration), and the late David Pearce. Formerly of the University of East Anglia’s Centre for Social and Economic Research on the Global Environment, David Pearce was a pioneer of environmental economics.
“The ENDS Report is a highly influential publication and we are delighted to be singled out in this way for inclusion in this list,” said Professor Jacquie Burgess, Head of the School of Environmental Sciences.
“Our Climatic Research Unit was investigating climate change before most people woke up to the challenges we face – and continues to be the leader in its field.”
http://www.uea.ac.uk/env/events/crukey
Well, if the School of Environmental Sciences at the University of East Anglia is “the strongest in the world”, what does that tell us about the current state of environmental science?
Glenn:
To add a bit of flesh to the bones of Prime minister Margaret Thatchers government taking an intrest in Climate in the 80s.
The British government at that time was in a long battle with the coalminers union.
An anti coal/carbon strategy developed as another tool to take support away from coalmining and Britains reliance on coal.
Thatchers former chancellor Lord Lawson now a major climate change sceptic has now admitted this was the case.
Phillip Bratby (07:42:37) :
Cold Englishman: If you go to the CRU website http://www.cru.uea.ac.uk/cru/people/ you will see the staff. The only person with any programming skill is Mr Ian (Harry) Harris (he also does “data manipulation”!).
Thank you Phillip, nice picture too, more hair on the chin than the head, looks like our man. We owe him a lot for his “REMarks”. perhaps programmers from now on should call them “REMinders”.
On a more serious note, you wouldn’t want to employ any graduate from this faculty, or indeed the entire university, would you? Totally disgraced. We shall see the likely result in next year’s student roll. Any able student will avoid this place like the plague, and UEA have themselves to blame.
I just helped my son with a sixth grade science project. It also involved time and temperature. He wrote the observations in a notebook. I told him “Now don’t lose that note book because…”. He finished the sentence for me “…we’ll have to do it all over again. Yeah, Dad, I know.”
Now, the CRU guys didn’t have that conversation, did they!
The servers at CRU need to be secured by law enforcement immediately, as well at those at all other relevant institutions (NASA). Additionally Jones and his team’s PC’s need to be seized and thoroughly scrutinized by an IT forensic team for cache and other trace data the may exist. How on earth could a a group of scientists willingly destroy raw data – it just boggles the mind. They will find their place in history but it will be far from what they expected.
WestHoustonGeo (08:54:19) :
I just helped my son with a sixth grade science project. It also involved time and temperature. He wrote the observations in a notebook. I told him “Now don’t lose that note book because…”. He finished the sentence for me “…we’ll have to do it all over again. Yeah, Dad, I know.”
Now, the CRU guys didn’t have that conversation, did they!
I understand that there may be a few million pounds left in the pot over at CRU. Seems a notebook with time and temperature data may have market relevance to Dr. Jones at the present time…
The ‘lost’ ‘destroyed’ ‘lack of storage space’ excuse broke a while ago, prior to ‘Climategate’. I suspected at that time it might be just more stiff-arming obfuscation, and that the genuine raw data could still exist. In the 80’s, it was quite routine official govt practice to microfiche original paper records of archive data rather than scan or digitally archive them as routine today.
The paper originals could well have been disposed of as claimed, but it would be incredible to jettison everything with no backup. Another possibility is that CRU only ever had paper duplicates, with the originals still intact in a storage vault somewhere. I still entertain the hope that they will be ‘rediscovered’, especially now that it is reaching the level of questions in the House and so on.