While this is encouraging news, releasing a subset will fuel some suspicion. A better choice would be to release the entire set. It may be too little, too late, the die of public opinion has been cast. Had they done this six months ago, they would have appeared visionary, rather than reactionary. The most encouraging news is the statement: “We intend that as soon as possible we will also publish the specific computer code…”. I applaud that, and I hope they do a better job than NASA GISS did, whose code is so esoteric, it is difficult to get running. Many have tried, one may have succeeded. – Anthony
From the Met Office Press Release:
Release of global-average temperature data
05 December 2009
The Met Office has announced plans to release, early next week, station temperature records for over one thousand of the stations that make up the global land surface temperature record.
This data is a subset of the full HadCRUT record of global temperatures, which is one of the global temperature records that have underpinned IPCC assessment reports and numerous scientific studies. The data subset will consist of a network of individual stations that has been designated by the World Meteorological Organisation for use in climate monitoring. The subset of stations is evenly distributed across the globe and provides a fair representation of changes in mean temperature on a global scale over land.
This subset is not a new global temperature record and it does not replace the HadCRUT, NASA GISS and NCDC global temperature records, all of which have been fully peer reviewed. We are confident this subset will show that global average land temperatures have risen over the last 150 years.
This subset release will continue the policy of putting as much of the station temperature record as possible into the public domain.
We intend that as soon as possible we will also publish the specific computer code that aggregates the individual station temperatures into the global land temperature record.
As soon as we have all permissions in place we will release the remaining station records – around 5000 in total – that make up the full land temperature record. We are dependant on international approvals to enable this final step and cannot guarantee that we will get permission from all data owners.
UEA fully supports the Met Office in making this data publicly available and is continuing to work with the Met Office to seek the necessary permission from national data owners to publish, as soon as possible as much of the data that we can gain permission for.
I would be interested to know what the selection criteria for these 1,000 stations is. Presumably someone has been crunching the numbers over the last few weeks and selecting those that have warmed the most!
This will improve trust and is a much needed part of the reconciliation between alarmists and realists.
Let’s hope they make it available and clear enough so that any one of us can replicate it if we so desire.
We just need some time to clean up those pesky code comments.
You write “six moths ago”. Are they responsible for the holes in the data?
REPLY: fixed thanks – A
So do they or do they not have the raw data? The story changes every day from them. Releasing adjusted data is useless. What are we going to do with that? Back calculate the raw data?
Was any of this data requested in a FOIA and will it be useful or is it just a rerelease of a Martin and Lewis comedy record from the 50’s?
It has to be the whole set. A subset will not dispell the obvious argument: “Is this a carefully selected subset?”
Code snipet from release data:
if(T[t+1]>T[t]) {Release_temperature(T[t+1]}
else {}
I’m losing track of which records have which problems.
If this is the raw data they’re talking about, then this seems to be a tacit admission that Jones lied about their destroying it. Am I missing something?
Oh I forgot Gordon will personally review the stations on the DVD’s he got from Obama.
BTW, showing the last 150 years has warmed is a red herring. WE KNOW THAT! What we don’t know is what’s responsible for it, and the emails/code from CRU show definitively it’s not CO2. Not if you have to adjust the data that much to get it to fit…
MET office to realise all data .
Here is the seasonal temperature deviation for Central England, 10 year moving average 1650-2010 with the first & last 10 year redacted.
http://www.vukcevic.co.uk/CET.gif
BBC reports on IPCC error on dissapearance of glaciers by 2035.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/south_asia/8387737.stm
Looks like other scientists are now fed up and pointing out inaccuracies.
Has correlation finally superseded causation in “proving” catastrophic anthropogenic global warming”?
Sir Humphrey would be proud as he artfully shows in: How’s the environment? – Yes Minister – BBC comedy”
This requires that all the monitoring stations be evaluated so that it can be established that they are not located in heat islands or have any other unexpected outside influences affecting them.
Sadly i think many will be in areas that will compromise the data so the eventual report that will be forthcoming will be worthless.
Independent verification is required.
Where are the atmospheric CO2 monitoring stations located also?
Not near a couple of volcanoes are they?
To be honest, i dont think they can ever regain the trust of the public now, i certainly feel that whatever data is released will just be the massaged stuff all rehashed to make it look “right”.
Early next week release date. I wonder what else is going on at that time.
If they don’t release the raw data as well, the adjusted land-only 1000 stations could show something like 0.8C or more of warming. So, I hope they are truly trying to be impartial here.
I wish we could all stop using terms like “adjusted data”.
Data are the actual readings from the field instruments. Once someone starts playing with the data, it becomes “un-data” (frequently otherwise referred to as the “global surface temperature record”).
I believe the climate science community knows how to collect accurate data. I do not understand why it chooses not to do so.
Velly Intellesting! (Apologies to Artie Johnson)
Are the Met Office aware of unintended consequences?
Anthony. A question that is referred to above and elsewhere. And I guess you won’t want to reply. Fine. I understand. Musing aloud …
So how does this affect the release of “surface stations” … the near-final report? If it is shown (by you and colleagues) that surface stations spew skewed temperatures (UHI and poor placement) then there really is NO trustworthy global data set.
I am a worrier [self snip], and if global temp data is inherently flawed, then the “new data” will show warming where none or little exists.
OT: Raging blizzard across Alberta today! Inuit don’t have a single work for snow. I on the other hand have several words for snow today..but this is a family show. ☺ ☺
Best,
Clive
I wonder if these are the stations located on parking lots or near A/Cs?
[OT comment, but too much fun not to post]
OOOPSY!!!!
Another warmist myth bites the dust:
“Dutch: Gore Wrong on Snows of Kilimanjaro”
“Newspapers and news sites in the Netherlands today extensively broke the news of the findings of a research team led by Professor Jaap Sinninghe Damste — a leading molecular paleontologist at Utrecht University and winner of the prestigious Spinoza Prize — about the melting icecap of the Kilimanjaro, the African mountain that became a symbol of anthropogenic global warming.
Professor Sinninghe Damste’s research, as discussed on the site of the Dutch Organization of Scientific Research (DOSR) — a governmental body — shows that the icecap of Kilimanjaro was not the result of cold air but of large amounts of precipitation which fell at the beginning of the Holocene period, about 11,000 years ago.
The melting and freezing of moisture on top of Kilimanjaro appears to be part of “a natural process of dry and wet periods.” The present melting is not the result of “environmental damage caused by man.”
http://pajamasmedia.com/blog/dutch-gore-wrong-on-snows-of-kilimanjaro/
Al Gore loses again.
And only for land stations?
Forget hadcrut. For the purposes of Science, it doesn’t exist. But the cover up does.
No one disputes the fact of warming (possibly now ceased) but rather the contribution of human emissions to it.
For 30 years we had a succession of pwerful El Nino events and an active sun.
Do they still deny that those factors had anything to do with the warming when they seem to blame the current pause (or cooling) on a strong La Nina and a weak sun ?
The entire AGW theory was predicated on the absence of an alternative cause other than human CO2.
They don’t even seem to have included an estimate of the reduction of the oceanic absorption of CO2 as a result of all those warm sea surface events.
Whatever the ‘audited’ data or computer code reveals they have no means of separating natural variability from anthropogenic causes.
We have to know their relative scales before coming to any conclusion that avoidance measures are economic or practical.
What they should do is ditch CO2 emissions as a significant issue and just concentrate on improved energy use and production via research and incentives. That will deliver what we really need at the earliest practical moment and the side effect of emissions reduction would be adequate to satisfy the precautionary principle.
In addition do all we can to encourage voluntary population restraint and clean up real pollution.
And if we must have a world government let it be created cautiously by consent with proper checks and balances rather than in a rush forced by unreasoning fear from fantastical speculations.
The whole CO2 panic reminds me of the effect of the first broadcast of War of the Worlds but with modern media the whole thing has gone so much further.
The fictional Martians were destroyed by bacteria. Perhaps the warming effect of more CO2 in the air is adequately neutralised by another feature of the Earth system. My favourite candidate is a speeded up hydrological system as I have explained in detail elsewhere.
OK, a thousand.
How many do they use in total?
What are the selection criteria?
Why a subset rather than all?
Good stuff anyway. We will see from running the code with the 1000 how well it matches CRU output.
Also How about a WUWT team effort to select and collect station data from the net? Pick ten each and get going from Jan 1st 2010. Screen scraping scripts anyone?