University of Toronto Wants to "Save" Climate Data from Trump

Main building of the University of Toronto, 1906
Main building of the University of Toronto, 1906. See page for author [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons
Guest essay by Eric Worrall

The University of Toronto is hosting a data archiving event on 17th December, to try to “save” climate data they believe will be deleted by the new Donald Trump administration.

Guerrilla Archiving Event: Saving Environmental Data from Trump

There is a Call to Action underway coming out of the Technoscience Research Unit at the University of Toronto, and happening at the Faculty of Information.

Two professors are calling on citizens to figure out if they “Care about Trump, data, or the environment?” Volunteersare invited to join in a full day of hackathon activities in preparation for the Trump presidency.

This event collaborates with the Internet Archive’s End of Term 2016 project, which seeks to archive the federal online pages and data that are in danger of disappearing during the Trump administration. This event is focused on preserving information and data from the Environmental Protection Agency, which has programs and data at high risk of being removed from online public access or even deleted. This includes climate change, water, air, toxics programs. This project is urgent because the Trump transition team has identified the EPA and other environmental programs as priorities for the chopping block.

SVP and up-to-date information: https://www.facebook.com/events/1828129627464671/ (link is external)

Bring: laptops, power bars, and snacks. Coffee and Pizza provided.

https://technoscienceunit.wordpress.com/2016/12/04/guerrilla-archiving-e… (link is external)

Submitted by Kathleen O’Brien on Mon, 2016-12-12 17:35

Date:

Saturday, December 17, 2016 –

10:00 to 16:00

Location:

Bissell Building, 4th Floor, 140 St. George St. University of Toronto

Read more: https://ischool.utoronto.ca/content/guerrilla-archiving-event-saving-environmental-data-trump

Can anyone recall any climate skeptic, anywhere, ever demanding the deletion of climate data?

Much of the battle between skeptics and climate organisations has been about compelling reluctant climate researchers to release data which they wanted to hide. Skeptics have consistently demanded more access to data, not less.

For example, consider Climategate email 1106338806.txt from Professor Phil Jones, former head of the prestigious UK based Climatic Research Unit.

From: Phil Jones

To: Tom Wigley

Subject: Re: FOIA

Date: Fri Jan 21 15:20:06 2005

Cc: Ben Santer

Tom,

I’ll look at what you’ve said over the weekend re CCSP.

I don’t know the other panel members. I’ve not heard any

more about it since agreeing a week ago.

As for FOIA Sarah isn’t technically employed by UEA and she

will likely be paid by Manchester Metropolitan University.

I wouldn’t worry about the code. If FOIA does ever get

used by anyone, there is also IPR to consider as well.

Data is covered by all the agreements we sign with people,

so I will be hiding behind them. I’ll be passing any

requests onto the person at UEA who has been given a post to

deal with them.

Cheers

Phil

Plenty more where that email came from – lots of discussions in the Climategate archive of legal tricks to avoid Freedom of Information requests, use of UN mandates to avoid national law based FOIA requests, requests to delete emails and files, and what appear to be deliberate attempts to conceal and perhaps even to delete important material.

In January 2010, the UK information office found that the CRU had breached freedom of information laws, but that the statute of limitations on the offence had run out – it was too late to prosecute those responsible.

0 0 votes
Article Rating
164 Comments
Oldest
Newest Most Voted
Inline Feedbacks
View all comments
michael
December 13, 2016 11:31 pm

where it is free to be homogenised as much as they like

Greg
Reply to  michael
December 14, 2016 1:14 am

This is a great initiative, the more copies of official data there are around the world, the harder it gets for the likes of GISS to go unnoticed when they are constantly “correcting” data and older “uncorrected” data disappears from view.
Whenever I download an update I ensure I keep the previous copy.
Skeptics should probably organise a similar project since warmists will be burning the books to hide evidence and removing public data access as funding gets threatened.
If they want to download as much data as they can , go for it.

Scottish Sceptic
Reply to  Greg
December 14, 2016 2:29 am

Most sceptics have hard drives full of data that they’ve retrieved at one time or another – and we keep because we’ve learnt the hard way that good data disappears quickly.

DHR
Reply to  Greg
December 14, 2016 3:47 am

Are they to archive the adjusted data or the data as measured?

Reply to  Greg
December 14, 2016 3:53 am

That was the first thing that came to my mind as well DHR

Greg
Reply to  Greg
December 14, 2016 3:58 am

Yeah, perhaps skeptics should start to up load some of this ‘missing’ data to a central respository and share it more widely.
There are certainly a lot of people here who have copies on long disappeared datasets and having more widely distributed copies would be a good safeguard from them fading from view again.

hunter
Reply to  Greg
December 14, 2016 4:18 am

Excellent point. The climate extremist kooks are the ones who have been deleting data, lying, refusing to share data.

Owen in GA
Reply to  Greg
December 14, 2016 6:53 am

Hopefully they will include the raw data with the relevant metadata so we can at least TRY to reconstruct the work and evaluate its legitimacy. Homogenizing wilderness stations with corrupted settlement data is the first perversion in gridded products. Some of the other adjustments may or may not be legitimate, but that one is easily shown to be bogus. (For the supporters – check the temperature of a grid over a sample of wilderness stations. You will find the homogenized temperature for that grid will have an increasing trend while the station itself will show a MUCH lower trend on the raw data – sometimes even show a decrease while the gridded product is showing imminent thermageddon. Thus homogenization is falsified!)

Bryan A
Reply to  Greg
December 14, 2016 8:12 am

I have a link to a site called Athropolis that used to have temperature sensor links
http://www.athropolis.ca/map2.htm
Every yellow dot used to represent a temperature station and supplied a reasonably current reading. Now, unfortunately, all those links seem to deliver no data available. Either the site was unfunded and can’t gather the information or it is being silenced due to inconvenient data

Stephen Greene
Reply to  Greg
December 14, 2016 1:30 pm

I have all that data with yearly copies. They can get it from me with all FDA and ISO metadata required for each. These guys are FOS and playing head games.

Reply to  Greg
December 14, 2016 5:51 pm

GISS ingests from NOAA

George Tetley
Reply to  michael
December 14, 2016 3:49 am

Finally,
proof of degrees for idiots

John Silver
Reply to  George Tetley
December 14, 2016 4:28 am

I am a climate skeptic and I demand the deletion of professors.

David A Anderson
Reply to  michael
December 14, 2016 4:07 am

Perhaps they are “archieving” how the “blip” was removed like this…

Reply to  David A Anderson
December 14, 2016 10:08 am

Funny..

Charles Higley
Reply to  michael
December 14, 2016 4:44 am

They can hide the data sets in a Folder called DAD, Dishonestly Altered Data, or under the name GWS, Global Warming Scam. No one will find it there.
Actually this data will not be deleted. It will be published under its true colors along with the names of those who altered the data. I think that is what they are really afraid of.

Reply to  Charles Higley
December 14, 2016 1:19 pm

I like that idea!

billw1984
Reply to  michael
December 14, 2016 5:26 am

I suspect many of the people that show up will be Eco-philosophers and Eco-sociologists and they will archive their own nonsensical papers and Eco-cartoons.

Frank K.
Reply to  michael
December 14, 2016 12:10 pm

We need to distinguish between “data” – which are the actual temperatures recorded by hard-working volunteers all over the world for decades – and “data products” – which is the garbage produced by computer codes like GISTEMP. Sure the “data” need to be saved and properly archived, and the “data products” – ummm, not so much.
It’s like the difference between “cheese” (e.g. a finely aged Gorgonzola cheese) and “cheese product” (e.g. Cheese Whiz).

Jeff Alberts
Reply to  michael
December 14, 2016 7:32 pm

Maybe they’ll finally require the Lonnie Thompsons of the world to publicly archive that which they’ve refused to do for decades. Data needs to be rescued from climate scientists, not saved from Trump. Sheesh!

Mervyn
December 13, 2016 11:32 pm

It may all be a waste of time. Listen to this explosive news announced a few days ago:

richard verney
Reply to  Mervyn
December 14, 2016 1:01 am

Well it will be interesting to hear the big reveal.
However, he talks about a 2 to 2.5degc per doubling of CO2, and as we know the Paris Accord is seeking to cap temperature rise at 1.5degC, so his breakthrough is unlikely to take the wind out of the sails of the alarmists, and that is assuming that his breakthrough truly is a breakthrough, and that he is right on it.
I was rather disappointed after listening to the video.

Greg
Reply to  richard verney
December 14, 2016 3:37 am

Yes, listening to Monckton is often disappointing. It would be interesting to see his BIG error work, though previous stuff here has been a little unconvincing, he may well have found a good argument about the upper bounds being unrealistic since they are.
The long tail of the distribution give rise to all sorts of ridiculous “may be as much as” type claims which are precisely the figures journalists like to select for headlines without reporting the may be as little as which goes with it.

Keitho
Editor
Reply to  richard verney
December 14, 2016 3:52 am

Me too but I think he was referring to the model projections rather than reality. He was looking for the mathematical defect in the models.
He has no more idea of what reality will look like than anybody else at the moment.

Greg
Reply to  richard verney
December 14, 2016 4:04 am

Whether it is the range of sensitivities display by various models or observation based estimates of the real climate it is the same fundamental problem: uncertainty in the numerator gives a symmetric probability distribution but uncertainty in the denominator produces a heavily skewed distribution with a long tail which includes some very high values with a small but finite probability.
These give rise to “may be as much as ” type claims.

Greg
Reply to  richard verney
December 14, 2016 4:07 am

This reciprocal term is what Monckey keeps referring to as his ‘rectangular hyperbola’. It’s an attempt to make himself sound very knowledgeable about maths and science. The old baffle ’em with science ploy.

Pat Kelly
December 13, 2016 11:32 pm

Something that I’ve noticed in my time here on Earth is that usually the one side that is accusing the others of some deplorable act are usually up to their elbows in doing that very same act. Think back a few years and remember that the raw data collected for creating HADCRUT was somehow destroyed when a legal request to produce the data was granted.
This hacking party is merely a smokescreen to suggest that the Trump administration is not to be trusted with producing the unadulterated data for political reasons…

Nigel S
Reply to  Pat Kelly
December 13, 2016 11:35 pm

Exactly, it’s the application of the standard technique again.

Greg
Reply to  Nigel S
December 14, 2016 3:41 am

psychologists call it projection.
Most know that the IPCC authors are very strong on projection.

observa
Reply to  Nigel S
December 14, 2016 4:02 am

“Most know that the IPCC authors are very strong on projection.”
The International Projection Committee of Catastrophe it is then.

Mark
Reply to  Nigel S
December 14, 2016 4:08 am

Yes, projection. I have noticed the same thing with the left, to the point it has become a rule of thumb of mine:
If the left makes an accusation, you’ll find the left up to its elbows in that behaviour.
A subsidiary rule of thumb is:
Chances are those they accuse are not doing as claimed,
or doing it only in a mild version compared with the left.
I am often surprised by the explanatory power of this little mental trick. It can even be used as a predictive tool, for example as to the way evidence in some issue of debate will unfold.

Patrick MJD
Reply to  Pat Kelly
December 14, 2016 12:43 am

“Pat Kelly December 13, 2016 at 11:32 pm
Think back a few years and remember that the raw data collected for creating HADCRUT was somehow destroyed when a legal request to produce the data was granted.”
Didn’t even get to a request for the raw data. The UEA CRU *LOST ALL* the raw data in office moves in the mid 90’s. They have been fudging it since!

Gary Pearse
Reply to  Pat Kelly
December 14, 2016 1:36 am

Yeah, they think everyone behaves the way they do so they use the same ‘model’ to imputed motives to the ‘bad’ guys.

Gary Pearse
Reply to  Gary Pearse
December 14, 2016 1:38 am

Dang illiterate cell phone text correcter!

Wally
Reply to  Pat Kelly
December 14, 2016 3:21 pm

Indeed, it’s called ‘projection’.

charles nelson
December 13, 2016 11:33 pm

We really are in the ‘looking glass’ here.
I cannot be the only person who laments the corruption of real climate data by ‘authorities’ over the last two decades.
Phil Jones from UEA admitted in a Climategate email that the original data could not be recovered…
And here are these ‘activists’ protecting the corrupted data?
Tsk.

December 13, 2016 11:45 pm

Another sad day for science I fear…

M Seward
Reply to  Alastair Brickell
December 14, 2016 1:11 am

Not at all Alistair, this crap never was science to begin with. It has always just been political, ideological, agit propaganda. Besides, it is now the perfect opportunity to tun this back at the alarmists and fraudsters and accuse them of wanting to NEVER be held to account by having their data audited and all their data fiddling exposed. That was the gift of the UEA emails, it revealed the depths to which these con artists would go to conceal their secret techniques.

December 13, 2016 11:54 pm

Wasn’t it the CRU at UEA that erased a hard drive with original climate data?

Greg
Reply to  Frederick Colbourne
December 14, 2016 1:02 am

No, it was the original paper records that were lost or destroyed during a move to new premises.
Phil Jones also said he would rather delete the raw data files than give them to Steve McIntyre.

Reply to  Greg
December 14, 2016 8:08 am

That’s because Steve was trying to find something wrong with the data.
If Steve would have left it alone everything would be okay.
We might even still have a solid hokey stick.

Roger Knights
December 13, 2016 11:54 pm

“. . . data at high risk of being removed from online public access . . .”
Some of this may be charts and tables that have been based on dodgy data or manipulated for persuasive/alarmist effect. These indeed might be deleted or modified by the new administration’s top employees.

Steamboat McGoo
Reply to  Roger Knights
December 14, 2016 12:24 am

My thoughts exactly. This “archiving” effort may just be a backup plan to “disappear” fudged data, in case there are (dare I hope it?) Fraud Trials sometime in the foreseeable future.

Scottish Sceptic
December 13, 2016 11:59 pm

Why would Trump want to delete the fabricated data – he needs it for the prosecutions.

Pop Piasa
Reply to  Scottish Sceptic
December 14, 2016 11:14 am

Right-o, UofT wants to be like Hillary and ‘save’ the evidence from the light of scrutiny.

December 14, 2016 12:05 am

Why would skeptic delete data?
That data is going to be Exhibit A.

Scottish Sceptic
Reply to  Menicholas
December 14, 2016 2:25 am

It had occurred to me that this was a secret code word for “delete all the data”.

Reply to  Scottish Sceptic
December 14, 2016 8:47 am

I not see that you had already posted my same thought, worded slightly different.
But, whether psychological projection or a coded dog whistle, the one thing we know is it is the Warmistas who delete data not the Skeptics.
Most of the ignorant faithful have no idea of what’s actually going on though. I’ve seen lots of my liberal friends posting this on Facebook.

R.S. Brown
December 14, 2016 12:10 am

Perhaps meaningful subpoenas from Congressional Committees for original data,
documents, and notes (including e-mails) to numerous researchers, like Mann,
Santer, Funkhouser, Bradley and Tom Karl, as well as the EPA, NOAA and the
Department of Energy would make everyone feel “safe” from selective deletion of
documentation.
That would take the information out of the dreaded Trump administration’s hands
and put it on the public record, with the researchers giving testimony under oath
before Congress as to how it was derived.
…or has someone tried to plow this field earlier, before the political climate
changed ?

cirby
December 14, 2016 12:20 am

“You’re going to collect all of the climate data?”
“Yes, we have to archive it to protect it from the skeptics!”
“And what if someone wants to see the copies?”
“What, so they can find something wrong with them? Don’t be daft! Nobody will ever see this stuff, if we have anything to say about it. By the way, we need a million dollars up front and another half-million dollars a year for paying people to not hand out the data. It’s to protect the climate, you see.”

December 14, 2016 12:21 am

Well, as AGW folk have never particularly bothered about archiving their own data, this shouldn’t take them very long to pull off!!

Julien
December 14, 2016 12:21 am

Climate data should be saved from the climate scientists themselves in the first place unfortunately..

Scottish Sceptic
Reply to  Julien
December 14, 2016 2:20 am

+999999999

Greg
Reply to  Julien
December 14, 2016 3:44 am

That reminds me , has Lonnie Thomson archived his publicly owned data yet.

Jeff Alberts
Reply to  Greg
December 15, 2016 8:44 am

Well, he’s dead, but no. There were some oft-used cores he never archived. It’s ok, climate scientists just took his word for it. After all, IT’S SCIENTS!

Bryan
December 14, 2016 12:30 am

I suspect that a lot of Lab Support ‘climate scientists’ have little in the way of qualifications other than attending ‘green awareness’ courses .
I would be glad to be proved wrong hence show us your certificates.

Hivemind
Reply to  Bryan
December 14, 2016 3:13 am

I can’t, I lost the original and there was no backup.

Bryan A
Reply to  Hivemind
December 14, 2016 11:54 am

I would have but mine too is lost in time and Canada bought up all the backup data sources

Mike the Morlock
December 14, 2016 12:31 am

Oh dear, isn’t “hacking” illegal? The EPA is a United States Government agency, advocating the deliberate hacking of it, is a criminal act.
If any hacking takes place the perpetrators should be prosecuted.
Perhaps Mr Trump’s transition team may wish to remind them about that.
michael

urederra
Reply to  Mike the Morlock
December 14, 2016 3:02 am

It seems that it depends on what it is hacked.
Assagne is, on many people´s eyes, a hero. “Look at what he uncovered, it is soooo interesting,” they say.
Climategate hack was illegal, Mike Nature trick is out of contest, Do not read. It is boring, anyway.
Football leaks is fantastic, look at all that info these hackers gave us. We will have front page news in our newspaper for the rest of the month with these leaks. That is what some european newspapers are thinking.
But it is illegal to hack Hillary´s e-mails. These russian hackers want Trump to win. Do not look at the e-mails, they are private, Trump won because russian hackers released the e-mails. That is illegal. Did I say “do not look at the e-mails”?

Reply to  urederra
December 14, 2016 10:47 am

If the emails were hacked at all, and not disclosed by an insider….

catweazle666
Reply to  Cube
December 14, 2016 11:12 am

“If the emails were hacked at all, and not disclosed by an insider….”
That was the unofficial opinion of the police who investigated the matter, the whole investigation cost £85,000 (https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/uk-police-close-climategate/ ) which by the standards of the British police would barely pay for the coffee and biscuits.

Mike the Morlock
Reply to  Mike the Morlock
December 14, 2016 6:54 pm

urederra December 14, 2016 at 3:02 am
“It seems that it depends on what it is hacked.”
“But it is illegal to hack Hillary´s e-mails. ”
Hillary’s E-maisl were bleach-bittened. She broke the law. Hacking is a none issue, other then to prove she broke the law. Podesta emails may have been a hack or an insider. Because of the time line cut off, it is more likely a Democrat then a Russian. If it was Ivan they would have gone back for “second helpings”. We would have gotten more.
As for the Russians wanting Trump to win, so what. everyone has a preference as to who should be the U.S. President. Everyone one in the United States cast their vote on the information that was available to them. If the Russians provided information on double dealing within the Democratic leadership, to bad. Those people should not have been engaging in it. And in fact the leaks show that it was not the Russians influencing and interfering with the election process but rather the Democratic leadership themselves. Ivan just alerted us to it.
michael

thomam
December 14, 2016 12:35 am

Anyone think the “archiving” will be followed by a “deleting”. After all, can’t leave all that data, code and methodology lying around for the non-believers to “find something wrong with”

Griff
December 14, 2016 12:49 am

good idea.
It is quite possible the administration might want to prevent collection of data which would prove embarrassing to its position.
For similar reasons, I don’t believe we’ll see any attempt to examine or ‘prove’ the data is fraudulent, as alleged.
I suspect we will see a government suppressing scientific data for political reasons.

RACookPE1978
Editor
Reply to  Griff
December 14, 2016 4:57 am

Griff

It is quite possible the administration might want to prevent collection of data which would prove embarrassing to its position.
For similar reasons, I don’t believe we’ll see any attempt to examine or ‘prove’ the data is fraudulent, as alleged.
I suspect we will see a government suppressing scientific data for political reasons.

It is quite possible the this CURRENT administration might DOES ALREADY want to prevent collection of data which would prove embarrassing to its position.
For similar reasons, I don’t believe we’ll we HAVE ALREADY SEEN MANY attempts PREVENT ANYONE FROM examining or ‘proving’ the data is fraudulent, as alleged.
I suspect we will CONTINUE TO see THIS CURRENT ADMINISTRATION government CONTINUING TO ATTEMPT TO suppress REAL scientific data for political reasons.

stevekeohane
Reply to  RACookPE1978
December 14, 2016 5:22 am

I suspect we will see a government suppressing scientific data for political reasons.
We are seeing governments suppressing scientific data now for political reasons. What do you think the whole CAGW is founded on? It is not science.

Bryan A
Reply to  RACookPE1978
December 14, 2016 11:56 am

Hmmm
Government suppressing climate data for political reasons…
Hmmm
Sounds a lot like the last 8 years…
Stool
More of the same then?

MarkW
Reply to  Griff
December 14, 2016 6:45 am

Speaking of projecting …

catweazle666
Reply to  Griff
December 14, 2016 7:59 am

“It is quite possible the administration might want to prevent collection of data which would prove embarrassing to its position.”
Yes, Obama’s administration might well do exactly that, with good cause.
The incoming administration will have no necessity to, of course.

Caligula Jones
Reply to  Griff
December 14, 2016 8:15 am

Did you even read the email where climate scientists ADMIT to hiding data?

J Mac
Reply to  Griff
December 14, 2016 8:47 pm

Griff,
…quite possible…. might want…. I don’t believe…. I suspect….
Another data driven confirmation of the ‘Settled Science‘!
Anyone seen Climate Otter???

December 14, 2016 1:06 am

All this prompts the question – after the University of Toronto have assembled their vast archive of ‘saved’ climate data, will they permit general access to it, or is it to be saved from scrutiny as well as deletion ?

Steve Fraser
Reply to  richardbriscoe
December 14, 2016 5:24 am

maybe they have a clean copy of the CRU data?

3øworth
December 14, 2016 1:54 am

This is the same university that recently reprimanded a professor (Jordan Peterson), twice, for failing to use the “gender neutral” pronouns “Ze” (He) and “Hir” (Her). Professor Peterson said he refuses to use these terms because they are based upon “rubbish” science (sound familiar?). Proponents of this “theory” claim that differences between males and females is an invention of society and that scientists have no way of accurately looking at gender in the absence of sexism and misogyny.
Law professor Brenda Cossman, director of the Mark S. Bonham Centre for Sexual Diversity (oh boy) at the University of Toronto, stated there are reasonable limits on free speech in certain cases such as protecting human rights. She believes that refusing to use gender neutral pronouns in an educational setting could be found to be discriminatory. Is this woman for real!
This is the same loony mindset behind global warming alarmism. Note: Spell check insists the words “Ze” and “Hir” don’t exist. I going to report it to the Ontario Human Rights Tribunal tout suite.

Jeff Alberts
Reply to  3øworth
December 15, 2016 8:52 am

Not to mention that “gender” isn’t the same as “sex”. When you say “sex”, you’re referring to male and female, physical sexes. When you say “gender”, you’re SUPPOSED to be referring to masculine and feminine, which are behaviors.
the word “transgender” used to be “transsexual”. It changed somewhere along the way. Sex is a bad word, apparently, even when used clinically. On a health insurance form I filled out a few days ago, they didn’t ask my sex, they asked what my gender was, and gave the choices of “male or female”. Clueless.

philincalifornia
December 14, 2016 1:56 am

Do they know that you can buy a 2 TB external hard drive for $80 ????

Scottish Sceptic
Reply to  philincalifornia
December 14, 2016 2:23 am

Oh please – let’s encourage them to use robust procedures – even if it’s for some daft imagined reason.

Steve Fraser
Reply to  Scottish Sceptic
December 14, 2016 5:27 am

Trump could nip this in the bud by suggesting the Library of Congress or some other location be a repository.

PiperPaul
Reply to  Scottish Sceptic
December 14, 2016 11:15 am

Russian Hackers have already backup up the data for them.

Gary Pearse
December 14, 2016 2:03 am

Is the data still available so that we can create a movie showing the temperature record’s past being pushed down and it’s present being pulled up with the thumbtack stuck in at 1945?
What good is a record where we don’t know what the 1950 temperature will be next week.? They are snapping a picture of a work continually in flex. Trump is going to be blamed for whatever they want to blame him for. I still had the capacity to be shocked at the climategate felonies – not any more. The insider who released the climateer emails (like the Bernie Sanders supporter in the DNC who released the anti-Bernie stuff which was blamed on the Russians), will eventually be known – maybe a release after his death.

Peta in Cumbria (now moved to Notts)
December 14, 2016 2:05 am

so these folks have/are/want to set themselves as Guardians of Data.
Who decides what to keep and what not to keep read= Delete if not these self-appointed Guardians?
Then who decides who can see or use this data or who can add to to it, or especially what can be added?
No, I don’t think anything could *possibly* go wrong there…….

Scottish Sceptic
December 14, 2016 2:22 am

The question anyone from industry would ask is: “what do their ISO9000 compliance procedures say about data archiving” – the answer from almost all academics is “what’s ISO900, what’s ‘data archiving'”, etc.”

Editor
December 14, 2016 2:36 am

I wonder whether they want to archive GISS’ October version of global temperatures, which has now been altered to raIse temperatures in recent years (surprise, surprise!)
Fortunately you can still see October version on Wayback – you certainly won’t see it on GISS.
https://notalotofpeopleknowthat.wordpress.com/2016/12/13/gavin-caught-cheating-again/

jono1066
December 14, 2016 2:39 am

I remember a certain NASA page that should be carefully archived, something along the lines of`
`SC24 is going to be the biggest ever`
just before it got smaller. if they cant find it I will send them my copy, I`ve got it stored carefully on a memory stick

knr
December 14, 2016 2:43 am

But what ‘type ‘ of data? They would love to wipe out the unaltered and keep only the ‘adjusted’ data sets , which to some extent they already done . So WHAT they seek to preserve will be telling .

Bengt Abelsson
December 14, 2016 2:52 am

You know others by thyself.

December 14, 2016 2:53 am

I dare you to try and find the ERSST V3 ocean SST series which was the standard up to 2013. The NCDC scraped it from every place on the Internet it was held. Steve McIntyre archived it and I have saved a copy but that is all there is.
It also why we have to had to use the Wayback Internet archive so often.
But this will backfire and the warming supporters. Those that know what they should be looking for will be disheartened when they find out how hard it is to find the important climate data.

PiperPaul
Reply to  Bill Illis
December 14, 2016 11:18 am

You mean the Wayback Machine hasn’t been compromised / infested / infiltrated yet?
http://s27.postimg.org/67hd75k9v/lefty_institute_skin_suit_iowahawk.png

December 14, 2016 2:57 am

Er…don’t you just hit the SAVE button (if you haven’t already)? Why do you Toronto U people need the full cast of Aida, plus elephants?
I’ve saved climate data in case it disappears. It’s the data that shows that the hottest year in my region was 1915, the coolest was 1929, the driest was 1902 and the wettest was 1950. It’s the data which demonstrates that each month in my region had its highest mean max between 1910 and 1919 (except August, hottest in 1946).
So skip the operatics and just save the data, such as it is. Reduce your Aida footprint.

Patrick MJD
Reply to  mosomoso
December 14, 2016 4:06 am

I think it;s more a “SAVE” button…which saves data in line with the dogma. Remember the “keepers of script” held control aver all. Do I need to mention “indulgences” and “church”?

Caligula Jones
Reply to  mosomoso
December 14, 2016 8:20 am

You simply don’t understand the hive mind of the unhinged left: more people are ALWAYS the answer. Safety in numbers, doncha know. Solidarity. We the people. The 99%. Etc.
Of course, if you’ve ever been to a union meeting, or any sort of community group activity, you’ll know that the majority of the people are only there to pad the numbers. Most of the talking will be done by a handful of loudmouthed bullies. Wait for it at the U of T.
Can’t wait for the Black Lives Matter/Transgender Warrior Alliance to weigh in on climate change. Oh, wait:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3788741/Black-Lives-Matter-activists-admit-charges-City-Airport-protest.html

TerryS
December 14, 2016 3:01 am

One common theme for not handing over data is that it is propriety and they don’t own it so can not hand it over. Another is that they need written approval to pass it on to 3rd parties. The courts, in every country that I know of, also recognise data as a resource that has a monetary value.
So my question is, how many data protection laws and copyright laws are they willingly infringing by copying this data to 3rd parties? Do they realise they by giving a 3rd party data they do not own they may be breaking the law?
NOTE: I think that distributing climate data is a good thing as it means it is more likely to end up in the public domain.

Reply to  TerryS
December 14, 2016 5:18 am

Great observation. All skeptics need to do is form some PC-sounding foundation (say “Alliance for Protection of Science”), and contact all the usual climate researchers and say “send us your raw data so we can protect it from Trump”.
Maybe you’ll get something interesting.

Reply to  TerryS
December 14, 2016 6:50 am

Raw data may be owned by someone, but they are not protected by copyright.

pwl
December 14, 2016 3:15 am

It’s an opportunity. Everyone let them know that you’re willing to keep a copy of the climate data to protect it from being deleted or altered. That you feel that scientific integrity is crucial for science to move foward and that you’re very concerened about it being altered in the coming Trump era. [;-)]

pwl
Reply to  pwl
December 14, 2016 3:16 am

Make sure to let them know that you can archive all the data and that you’ve got plenty of friends willing to help them get the data out of danger of being deleted or changed.

James Bull
December 14, 2016 3:28 am

Maybe it’s the recordings of crickets, lalalala and silence that they will be saving as that has been the response that requests for data have brought forth.
James Bull

mountainape5
December 14, 2016 3:59 am

Gamecock
December 14, 2016 4:19 am

Didn’t Toronto used to be in Canada?
Are they going to wear “Trump is not my president” tee shirts? Would actually be appropriate.

Rob
Reply to  Gamecock
December 14, 2016 5:28 am

Didn’t Toronto used to be in Canada?
There are a lot of people that wish that it wasn’t.

MarkW
Reply to  Rob
December 14, 2016 6:48 am

Give it to Quebec, then see what you can do to restart the secessionist movement there.

commieBob
December 14, 2016 4:30 am

Many of us gather a lot of data on our hard drives. Several posters have downloaded databases so they will have the original if the database is later ‘adjusted’.
It is important to create a README file for each database that records where the database came from and the date it was collected. Without that information, there is almost no point archiving the database in the first place.
If you collect a lot of data, it is important that you have a way to find what you want. I use Zotero to organize my research. It’s free and installs easily into Firefox.

PiperPaul
Reply to  commieBob
December 14, 2016 11:20 am

Maybe Harry could create this file…

Reasonable Skeptic
December 14, 2016 4:48 am

“Can anyone recall any climate skeptic, anywhere, ever demanding the deletion of climate data?”
That kind of depends on which side of the fence you sit on now doesn’t it. You see, the model lovers out there think that models produce data while us science deniers think they produce output. So by wanting to get rid of bad homogenization processes, the deniers want to destroy the “data”.

emsnews
December 14, 2016 4:56 am

The Washington Post and NYT picked up this stupid story, too. They are all yelling about it like it is roasting hot. The high tomorrow on my little mountain here in NY will be 6 degrees above 0F tomorrow! Isn’t global warming fun?

pameladragon
Reply to  emsnews
December 14, 2016 12:09 pm

I never tire of listening to this from the Minnesotans for Global Warming.

PMK

ScienceABC123
December 14, 2016 4:56 am

I for one would be glad to see the Trump Administration delete all the “adjusted” data and leave only the raw data available.

Bryan A
Reply to  ScienceABC123
December 14, 2016 12:04 pm

Unfortunately this action would likely leave empty databases as unadjusted data would likely fit entirely on the head of a pin written on the wings of the angels dancing there. Or a 16 MB SD card

observa
December 14, 2016 5:17 am

Woops! Seems the usual modus operandi of flogging gender fluidity, safe spaces and trigger points can backfire on their enthusiasts-
http://www.msn.com/en-au/news/world/a-professor-called-trump%E2%80%99s-election-an-%E2%80%98act-of-terrorism%E2%80%99-death-threats-forced-her-to-flee/ar-AAlx6aP?
Wonder if we’ll see a similar backlash with the doomsday warming dribble some time?

sergeiMK
December 14, 2016 5:25 am

ScienceABC123 December 14, 2016 at 4:56 am
I for one would be glad to see the Trump Administration delete all the “adjusted” data and leave only the raw data available.
—-
Revert adjusted data back to
how flat the earth is
Miasma theory of disease
Aether was a good theory
so was earth centric universe
Why change – they must have been correct then as they are now
I think updating obvious misunderstandings , and errors cannot be faulted if there is scientific backing.

graphicconception
December 14, 2016 5:31 am

I wonder if they will come across the data that Phil Jones lost that prevented him from defending his paper on: “Assessment of urbanization effects in time series of surface air temperature over land”?
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2010/feb/15/phil-jones-lost-weather-data

graphicconception
December 14, 2016 5:33 am

The interesting point is why would it occur to them that a politician might hide data that he might find inconvenient? Has that already been happening, I wonder, or did that only just occur to them?

Bruce Cobb
December 14, 2016 5:43 am

These types of “events” by the Alarmists, who are in full blown panic mode now, are nothing more than political grandstanding, meant to rally the troops to their Cause which is now a lost one, but hey, it gives them the feeling that they are “doing something”.

hunter
December 14, 2016 5:50 am

As others have pointed out, it is the skeptics who have demanded that data should be preserved and shared. The climate weasels are the ones refusing to share, preserve unaltered, and to practice transparency. The lefties running this are projecting, not protecting.

DCA
Reply to  hunter
December 14, 2016 6:19 am

Exactly. It’s more likely they will be deleting data, not saving it.
Liberals will do just the opposite of what they say they want to do.

December 14, 2016 6:17 am

The several commenters who mentioned “projection” are on point. Dealing with the climate change establishment in the US government will be like a a replay of the IRS and Hillary’s emails, where hard drives will crash, backup files will get deleted, and Bleachbit file destruction software will be used on the subpoenaed files. They are much better at CYA than their purported jobs.

MarkG
Reply to  Tom Halla
December 14, 2016 10:14 am

Except, for the next eight years, when a government official says ‘we can’t give you that data because we’re incompetent’, the response will not be ‘well, OK then’. It will be ‘YOU’RE FIRED!’

Resourceguy
December 14, 2016 6:21 am

Don’t forget the over-sized bronze statue to the data and the hockey stick chart, the faculty committee for the protection of the data, the student and Greek elections for the protection of the data, and the extended holiday for honoring the data, especially the simulated data. You will also need journalism awards for best coverage of the (contrived) issue.

Alan Ranger
December 14, 2016 6:23 am

Gotta laugh at these loopy warmists. We all know logic is not their strong suit, but if Trump’s agenda is, indeed, to expose the AGW scam, then data will be the very evidence he needs for the conviction. Their archiving efforts will be akin to setting a nice, comprehensive, organized evidence room, all ready for him to draw on when he prosecutes his case. AGWers … it really doesn’t get any dumber.

Reply to  Alan Ranger
December 14, 2016 8:26 am

You’re kidding, right?
By the time they’re done there will be no way to accurately trace anything about the data.
Look what Harry did to the harry_read_me file and he was trying to help save the data.
I’ll just make it up.

Alan Ranger
Reply to  mikerestin
December 14, 2016 2:43 pm

Probably came across wrong. Maybe better to say that with all this archived stuff to compare to the real thing, there will be a readily accessible trove of falsified propaganda to draw on. The situation now is that once something is uncovered as bunkum, it mysteriously disappears from sites, with no acknowledgement that it ever existed. Where did that poster-sized IPCC hockey stick disappear to? Warmists will not change their stripes, and try to make their fake data look more “real” again.

December 14, 2016 6:25 am

They don’t want to save data. They want to perpetuate propaganda websites.

MarkW
December 14, 2016 6:38 am

This is funny, coming from an industry that is famous for both hiding, and losing the raw data.

Robert of Ottawa
Reply to  MarkW
December 14, 2016 5:38 pm

Or fabricating data where it doesn’t exist.

arthur4563
December 14, 2016 6:41 am

The left wing’s imagination always works overtime – how many unsubstantiated, even absurdly stupid, fears have been published over the years about some predicted casualty or another from global warming. mostly by junk science publications and/or the almost totally ignorant mass media (by their “science editor” sometimes, just before, like the WaPo, they reassign them to the fashion or style section). I suppose these guys believe that those currently manning the battle stations at the EPA are negligent by not archiving (actually, the data is already archived and probably to multiple storage locales and devices – memory is so cheap it could be located in a thousand different laptop desk drawers ). Just put it on the internet – NOTHING ever gets deleted from there, excepting pictures of the South’s “Old Glory” – the stars and bars of the Confederate flag. Which are, by the way, extremely valuable if original, just like almost anything connected with the Confederacy

Grumpus.
December 14, 2016 6:44 am

The only thing that really matters is that the CHICAGO CUBS WON!!!

Sean Peake
Reply to  Grumpus.
December 14, 2016 8:03 am

Well, if you count the total (popular) runs, Indians won 27 to 26

December 14, 2016 6:52 am

Mother Nature does not do politics.

kramer
December 14, 2016 6:58 am

Maybe there are backup copies on a server in one of Hillary’s bathrooms?
Seriously, if anything, these ‘scientists’ are probably deleting the data so that we can’t see how it was adjusted.

December 14, 2016 7:34 am

If Government scientists are NOT backing up their data,aren’t they breach of their work contract? This is just a publicity stunt.

tabnumlock
December 14, 2016 7:56 am

Old people who have lived in the same Northern city their whole lives are the greatest climate resource. I’m one and can tell you there has been no noticeable change in the climate in the past 60 years, alas. Trump is another.

Jeff Alberts
Reply to  tabnumlock
December 15, 2016 9:07 am

“Old people who have lived in the same Northern city their whole lives are the greatest climate resource. I’m one and can tell you there has been no noticeable change in the climate in the past 60 years, alas. Trump is another.”
Not really. memories can be false, can change over time, are generally unreliable.

Skeptical02
December 14, 2016 8:02 am

The real danger is not what Trump appointees may delete, it is how much raw data, how many emails, and what audit trail of intentional adjustment get deleted by the GISS crowd and others before the new sheriff shows up. Skeptics may have access to hidden information that makes Climategate seem tiny. Here comes the bleachbit as they hide their tracks before leaving town.

Steve
December 14, 2016 8:34 am

I have a feeling the past is going to start warming up and the current decade is going to start cooling down. He who controls the data controls the ammunition for the narrative. There is a justifiable fear on the left that all of the current government climate data keepers are going to get called into a brief meeting with Trump. “You’re fired”
In 2000 James Hanson wrote a summary on the 20th century temperature trend in the US that said the 1930s were hot but the later half of the century showed very little trend, perhaps a slight cooling trend. What a difference dozens of revisions to adjust the data makes. Now the later part of the 20th century in the US shows a steep rise that was non-existent in the 2000 version of the temperature data. The left knows if you don’t have the Al Gore mind set of “its OK to exaggerate data to get people to act” then you aren’t going to buy into the adjustments they’ve made to the temperature data over the last 15 years. Anthony was involved in a review of the temperature data that showed the adjusted measurements showed 50% more temperature rise than the undadjusted measurements. You think that kind of manipulation is going to hold up through a Trump administration? Neither does the left, so they want to preserve their version of the data, version 2.BS.

Reply to  Steve
December 14, 2016 8:46 am

Steve, I suggest you investigate the difference between a political appointee, and a career civil servant. You can’t just “fire” a non-political federal worker without cause.

Reply to  Steve Heins
December 14, 2016 9:24 am

No, but one can eliminate that civil service position entirely, and deal with the incumbent that way. The person might have preference in trying to fill another open position in the same department, but a RIF is possible.

December 14, 2016 8:57 am

Translation : We are going to delete as many files as possible and make it impossible for Trump to uncover our scam

G. Karst
December 14, 2016 9:50 am

Wouldn’t this be “fake news” as neither Trump nor any other skeptic has ever called for the deletion of raw data. If they are referring to adjusted data – who cares? GK

crosspatch
December 14, 2016 10:45 am

Wait, Toronto is still in Canada, isn’t it? Is Trump going to be President of Canada, too?

MarkG
Reply to  crosspatch
December 14, 2016 11:06 am

” Is Trump going to be President of Canada, too?”
We can but hope…

crosspatch
Reply to  MarkG
December 14, 2016 11:30 am

They’ll probably build a wall.

James at 48
December 14, 2016 11:48 am

It’s actually a wonderful idea. When can we begin the scraping process?

venusnotwarmer
December 14, 2016 12:30 pm

this is just a typical liberals’ ploy to call for all their data to be deleted

Joel Snider
December 14, 2016 12:33 pm

Saw that the Energy department was stonewalling on turning over its list of climate beneficiaries too.
My guess is that approach won’t work once Trump’s actually in office.
Assuming they don’t manage to overturn the election somehow. I’ve not forgotten who is still in power.

Missing Semicolon
December 14, 2016 1:07 pm

I hope that archive.org won’t be removing the older versions of this stuff to “make room”. It’s nice to have proof when the past gets chilled…..

pameladragon
December 14, 2016 1:13 pm

Does any honest researcher ever really delete data? Even if it does not support or disprove one’s thesis,it may still contain useful nuggets if applied to another thesis. Keep everything, I say! We never know where the next important breakthrough will come from.
PMK

Brandon C
December 14, 2016 1:29 pm

To be really pessimistic and honest about it. I really expect that there will be all kinds of missing data when the new guys come in, and the old guard already is laying the groundwork for blaming the new guys for deleting it. None of the information that is questionable will make it into the data backup project and there will be so much hand wringing about how they didn’t get it backup up before the nasty new guys deleted it.
And seriously, you could back up all this data in few days tops, this stinks of planned in advance media attack. But we all know how little facts matter in climate change, it is all media campaigns and pr. Backing up this data is simple and quick. And most of it is duplicated over and over through many groups and locations.

MikeN
December 14, 2016 1:34 pm

Haven’t these guys heard of wayback machine?
Can we get involved in this, and use it to unearth data not available right now?

Geoff
December 14, 2016 1:45 pm

Maybe its just me, but I expect all professional organisations to already have data archiving processes in place.

1sky1
December 14, 2016 2:23 pm

It’s just the pot calling the kettle black.

Resourceguy
December 14, 2016 4:33 pm

So BEST is not doing a good job, is that it?

Robert of Ottawa
December 14, 2016 5:32 pm

Toronto is not part of Canada, even though Torontonians think they ARE Canada.
We need to save Canada from Toronto.

Editor
December 14, 2016 5:59 pm

The wayback machine doesn’t seem to do a good job past a few years. What might be useful would be digitizing data tables from older scientific publications. In case anyone is interested, I can chip in some anomaly data, totalling close to 5 megabytes, as a bzipped tarball in unix format. It’s over 41 megabytes uncompressed. I’ve archived data for…
* GISS mid-2007 to present with a few scattered months back to August 2005
* HadCRUT2 December 2005
* HadCRUT3 November 2011 to May 2014
* HadCRUT4 November 2012 to present
* NCEI January 2010 to present
* RSS February 2008 to present
* UAH March 2008 to present
Would WUWT be interested in archiving it?

December 14, 2016 6:06 pm

“Can anyone recall any climate skeptic, anywhere, ever demanding the deletion of climate data?”
That’s not the term they use, but’s it’s the end they want
Here is how they will do it.
Take Gisstemp for example
1. They will mis-characterize Gisstemp as a fraud, when in fact every bit of data and code has been online since we fought to free it up for auditing.
2. Since they cannot point to any single line of code that generates known false answers or a single bit
that fudges the data, they will characterize it as “suspect”
3. Since it largely agrees with every other record, they will finally characterize it as redundant.
Anyway they can they will find a way to end GISSTemp rather than improve it. Contrast this with what happened when we freed the code
Back in 2007 steve mc and others (like me) worked to get the code free, and then the adjustment code of NOAA free.
After the gisstemp code was free, one team of guys at clear climate code created an improved version.
Their fixes went back to GISS
Since running the GISStemp code takes a few minutes, since it hasnt changed much since 2010,
Since it uses NOAA data, and Since GISSTEMP actually just crunches inputs provided by others,
you cant actually Kill it.
That my friend is the whole beautiful point of free and open software.

Reply to  Steven Mosher
December 15, 2016 12:15 pm

“Reykjavik” is an especially interesting and exceptional case.
There is no feeding of adjustments into NOAA’s system. You guys need to do basic grunt work to see what data is ingested and where it lives. Then look at the code and how it changes series
Reykjavik is not being adjusted properly, but the reason is not what you guys think.
Go have a meeting with the guys and Iceland and they will explain why Reykjavick is the way it is.
Its not a simple problem. Fortunately, the bad adjustment makes no difference
As for Rutherglen, I test australia with every variant of that site known to man. and run with and without
cases. there’s no difference worth discussing

GregK
December 14, 2016 7:59 pm

“The University of Toronto is hosting a data archiving event on 17th December, to try to “save” climate data they believe will be deleted by the new Donald Trump administration”.
Has Justin Trudeau signed a secret deal handing Canadian sovereignty over to the US or is the US planning another invasion after the last official attempt failed in 1812-14 ?
I don’t think either are likely.
Is the University of Toronto planning to hack US government sites to “rescue” allegedly at risk data?
Imagine the wailing, gnashing of teeth and general righteous indignation if a US group announced it was going after Canadian government information.
Hypocrites

Firey
December 14, 2016 9:04 pm

I certainly hope they “save”the unadjusted raw data. It might be the last chance.

December 14, 2016 11:14 pm

Maybe the rumor was put out by a clever skeptic for the very purpose of having many people download the data before the Alarmists deleted it. If so, the ruse has fooled their simple minds, and worked 😅

Sean
December 15, 2016 11:29 am

Which data to the plan to save?
The original temperature data set as actually measured by instruments?
Or the fraudulently altered and faked data as manufactured by their climate junk scientists?

Joel Snider
Reply to  Sean
December 15, 2016 12:10 pm

My guess is that the ‘data’ isn’t at issue, so much as the e-mails where they talk about how they will spin it to match the alarmist scenario.

The Expulsive
December 15, 2016 3:03 pm

As a despised engineering graduate from this place…I am not surprised by their ideas

Ian L. McQueen
December 18, 2016 3:24 pm

Our CBC radio news has been pushing the U of T story right up to Saturday evening (16th). Since we heard it on the CBC it must be true. (sarc off)
Ian M

Johann Wundersamer
December 20, 2016 2:29 am

“Saving Environmental Data from Trump
There is a Call to Action underway coming out of the Technoscience Research Unit at the University of Toronto, and happening at the Faculty of Information.” –
better
paid by taxpayers to save from taxpayers.