This just in from U.S. Senator David Vitter’s office here’s now the official press release:
For Immediate Release Contact: Joel DiGrado (Vitter) (202) 224-4623
December 8, 2010 Emily Lawrimore (Barrasso) (202) 224-6441
Vitter, Barrasso Introduce Bill to Ensure Open, Accurate NASA Climate Data
(Washington, D.C.) – U.S. Sens. David Vitter and John Barrasso today introduced S. 4015, the Public Access to Historical Records Act, which would dramatically improve the transparency and accuracy of NASA’s historical records and guarantee public access to the data.
“Recent incidents, such as the investigation showing that the Obama administration manipulated data to justify the drilling moratorium, have raised concerns that some scientists and government agencies are using misleading data to support their favored viewpoints,” said Vitter. “This bill would open NASA’s temperature records to public scrutiny and establish an objective set of data to ensure that influential climate research is protected from political agendas.”
“Each year, Americans are forced to spend billions of their hard-earned dollars to support climate change research. Since this administration promised to be the most open administration in history, it should immediately share NASA’s temperature data with the American public,” said Barrasso. “There are too many questions regarding temperature models not to allow all Americans access to this data. This legislation will ensure that our nation has the most accurate and transparent historic temperature record in the world.”
The bill by Vitter and Barrasso is consistent with the Data Quality Act, which requires that scientific information from government agencies be accurate, clear, complete and unbiased. The Public Access to Historical Records Act would require NASA and the National Climatic Data Center to immediately release relevant climate data that outside groups have long been attempting to review through the Freedom of Information Act.
The bill would also force NASA to make all of its raw historical temperature data available online to the public and would require the agency to compile an official U.S. historical temperature record with oversight from an independent council of appointed meteorologists and statisticians. The resulting temperature record would be routinely reviewed for accuracy by an independent auditor and would be required for use as a primary source by any scientists or groups accepting federal money for climate research.
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The full bill as presented is available here Temperature-Records-Act-2010 (PDF)
I had a small hand in this, reviewing some language, but the thrust of the bill came from NASA’s stubborn refusal to provide FOI requested data and documents to CEI. Don’t these guys ever learn? Of course this bill is in its infancy, so there’s no telling if it will make it to law, and if it does, how much it will be modified, or if some pork will be added to it.
Laws are like sausages, it is better not to see them being made.
— Otto von Bismarck
So, we’ll watch the sausage being made here, and hope for the best. – Anthony
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What about NOAA? They’re the ones making many of the corrections to new and old data based on poorly supportable assumptions.
Any attempt by NASA / NOAA /government to block this legislation would certainly further enrage an already skeptical public, further convincing the public that they are / have been manipulating the data to support their cause. It will be very interesting to see how this plays out
“What’s Going On”
The classic ….. [sarc/]
Q&A: Professor Phil Jones
M – What advice did you seek in handling FOI requests?
The university’s policy and guidelines on FOI and the Environmental Information Regulations are on our website and the information policy and compliance manager (IPCM) takes responsibility for co-ordinating responses to requests within that framework. We also have colleagues in each unit and faculty who are trained in FOI to help in gathering information and assessing any possible exceptions or exemptions.
I worked with those colleagues and the IPCM to handle the requests with responses going from the IPCM. He also liaises with the Information Commissioner’s Office where necessary and did so on several occasions in relation to requests made to CRU. Where appropriate he also consulted with other colleagues in the university on specific issues.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/8511670.stm
O/T but incredible news from the UK regarding the CET record.seem it is not just Cancun with a new record!!!!
see here..
http://www.accuweather.com/ukie/bastardi-europe-blog.asp?partner=accuweather
Thanks to Joe Bastadi and Gavin P from the TWO site
One thing I’d like to see is a revision history of FigD.txt, the US temp data where 2006 went from being 5th warmest in early November ’09 to joint warmest in late November ’09.
DaveE.
Personally I can’t wait to hear all the excusifying from people who don’t want the data released. The distortions of logic and rhetorical hoops they will have to jump through to justify being against this are going to be a major turn-off to everyone but the most die hard Kool Aid types. It’ll be like watching spastic octopuses playing a game of twister.
Leif Svalgaard says:
December 8, 2010 at 12:20 pm
I don’t like this provision:
• The resulting temperature record would have to be used as one (but not the only one) of the historical records by any scientists or group that accepts federal money for climate research.
======================================================
I agree. The way that’s worded, it makes no sense to do it in the first place.
Mosh, I have looked at the code. I’ve even read your explanation of why the past
temperatures are adjusted down every time there’s a new hysterical past
temperature reconstruction.
It’s still total BS…………
Sorry typo,should read Joe Bastardi
This makes far too much sense to become law. Think of all the government grants and university jobs that this would put at risk!
OMG, they actually read my blog posting on this of a few weeks ago and carried out my instructions 😉 , okay…..well….. maybe not exactly, but Vitter’s approach is definitely a step forward finally.
http://www.c3headlines.com/2010/11/what-the-gop-house-should-do-first-to-fix-climate-science-stop-the-fabrication-of-bogus-temperatures.html
♪ han-sen – is – going – to – jai-ail ♪
♪ na – na – na – na – na ♪
This sounds all very well and good. I think the ultimate effectiveness, better put the ultimate objectivity of the data, of this bill be only be know five or six years after passage. Remember keep a skeptical eye and Mother Nature and politicians play with loaded dice.
Good news. Clearly the FOI act is to weak.
I would like to see them go a step further: Any paper submitted by taxpayer-funded “science” should be posted online within 3 months of publication along with ALL SUPPORTING DATA. Science should be a search for the truth not a secret effort to enable political agendas in return for taxpayer dollars. Then we can add some fines for manipulating the public’s data.
I will believe it when I see it, thay will put up a lot of resistance to protect there gravy train
Dear Dr. Svalgaard,
I absolutely agree with you — the wording in the new law sucks. Nothing is gained by government-dictated data sets. Shades of King Canute and Trofim Lysenko. A step backwards for Science (assuming it isn’t already the de facto practice).
The real problem is that government-funded science is politically biased. Oh sure, there may be a few scientists with integrity in the government employ. I’m sure you are without blemish. But the sad truth is that there are very few. The funding drives the findings in the vast majority of cases, in all scientific disciplines.
One solution is for government to stop funding science altogether. That would not cause the demise of science, IMHO. Indeed just the opposite would result: a scientific renaissance. Another solution would be full openness and transparency, with unwavering integrity no matter the consequences, but we both know that’s never going to happen. Do you have any other suggestions?
Hallelujah.
Datasets driving major public policy should be independently verified to be true.
What a revolutionary idea – and only took 30 years.
Now we should apply this to taxation, medicine, aviation, civil engineering….
Oh, wait….already done.
Who would have thought.
“Restoring integrity in science, one law at a time.”
This is worth repeating:
So is this:
I don’t like new laws. We have to many already. This one though might be necessary. Unfortunately, my gut tells me that this might go the same way as it did across the pond:
“We don’t have the original data anymore…..”
There should be a surface stations evaluation and upgrade act.
Mike D. says:
December 8, 2010 at 2:40 pm
Another solution would be full openness and transparency, with unwavering integrity no matter the consequences, but we both know that’s never going to happen. Do you have any other suggestions?
The full openness etc would be the way, but science often has practical [monetary] results, so it is hard to achieve the openness. One suggestion would be for government not to dictate what researchers should use or look for. A blank check, so to speak, but that is not going to happen either. IMHO, the root problem is scientific illiteracy among the general public, politicians included. Blogging might help, but is also at times a hindrance due to the junk being peddled, and the venom spewed.
As suggested by others a useful step would be to remove pay-walls and make published papers freely available [if need be by the government paying a fee to the oh so poor publishers – BTW, I payed $11,000 in ‘page charges’ to have a recent paper published, so the publisher is not without income].
My favorite variant of that sausage saying:
“No one who has witnessed tax lobbyists’ perennial infestation of Capitol Hill can ever again confuse the making of tax laws with the making of sausages: at least when you make sausages, you know the pigs won’t be coming back.” — J. Mark Iwry
Perhaps I am viewing this from a different perspective but I have no problem with that requirement. It does on prevent you from also doing your analysis on some other data set. In that case you have two test cases. You either have to defend your data set or show the deficiency in the “official data set” either outcome would be good.
If the “official” data set is not suitable for your analysis, show why and how it should be improved or why to get useful output you must use another source of data.
If there is a large discrepancy between your data set and the official data set, when shown side by side, it would be incumbent for the researcher to explain why or how that discrepancy arises. In either case the researcher would in exchange for getting public money for the research either demonstrate a weakness in the official data set (and hopefully point out how that can be resolved), provide a modification to the official data set that resolves that “error” or “omission”, or must show why his/her data set is superior to the official data. The other case would be that the researcher validates an independent data set against the official open source data set, perhaps showing a differing method or source for gathering equivalent data.
There would be no reason a privately funded researcher could not use what ever data input they wanted, they could compute global average temperature based on skate board sale figures if they wanted to, they just could not get a free meal ticket from public funds to do it.
Use public funds — show us what your results would be with the public open source data set as input. Show anything else you like, but include that as part of the analysis, and provide as graph with the outputs from that “official open source” data set as a reference point your charts so the public at large can easily see if your data and results make sense compared to a well known audited data source.
Larry
hotrod ( Larry L ) says:
December 8, 2010 at 4:01 pm
==========================
Larry, they are not going to like that.
Keep in mind, these are the same numb-skulls that were trying to convince the government to give them doppler radar just a few years ago. They were so totally inept, they bankrupted their own program.
hotrod ( Larry L ) says:
December 8, 2010 at 4:01 pm
must show why his/her data set is superior to the official data.
Must show to whom? The government or some bureaucrat?
I actually have an example of this from my own experience. Several years ago, I discovered that the ‘official’ aa-index [measuring geomagnetic activity] was wrongly calibrated. It was not possible to get that paper published [ http://www.leif.org/research/No%20Doubling%20of%20Open%20Flux.pdf ]. Later the very same critics have agreed that such re-calibration was necessary. The problem here is that while the usual way of getting to a general acceptance is for the scientists in your field to read your paper [after peer-review] and go with it or simply ignore it [if it is no good], having someone up-front decide whether other people should have a chance to evaluate it is too prone to misuse. Here is another [personal] example: http://www.leif.org/research/IDV09-Review-History.pdf
The rebuttal of the Steig paper that was recently discussed at WUWT is another example. Both in my case and in this case the papers were eventually published [after long and unnecessary delay], because a third referee broke the deadlock. The whole ideas of an ‘official’ dataset is flawed. What is needed are well-documented data [and metadata] that are open for anyone to use as they see fit.