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Published online 12 August 2009 | Nature 460, 787 (2009) | doi:10.1038/460787a
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Climate data spat intensifies
Growing demands for access to information swamp scientist.
A leading UK climatologist is being inundated by freedom-of-information-act requests to make raw climate data publicly available, leading to a renewed row over data access.
Since 2002, Steve McIntyre, the editor of Climate Audit, a blog that investigates the statistical methods used in climate science, has repeatedly asked Phil Jones, director of the Climatic Research Unit (CRU) at the University of East Anglia, UK, for access to monthly global surface temperature data held by the institute.
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This information gathering has been paid for by the public so should be accessible by the public. There should be no requirement to seek permission from various "authorities"
Jones has no legal right to refuse freedom of information requests regardless of what he thinks of the person requesting this data paid for by tax dollars.-- Glenn Morton
"Jones has no legal right to refuse freedom of information requests ..." --except, of course, where data are proprietary and/or protected by confidentiality agreements, as seems to be the case here. Where information has commercial value, as well, it is protected, and cannot be released without the permission of the organisation which owns it. If you were involved in data collection at all, you ought to be aware of this.
"Where information has commercial value, as well, it is protected, and cannot be released without the permission of the organisation which owns it. If you were involved in data collection at all, you ought to be aware of this." Lynne, I am involved in data collection,and negotiating contracts for the past 40 years, including during the time I lived in the UK. I know that if Jones can't produce an agreement, and the purported other party can't produce an agreement, the claim not to be able to release the data is just so much crap. His claim that these requests will take too much time could be fixed by simply putting up all the data he is legally allowed to release. As it is, he seems to think nothing is available to be checked. Frankly, I suspect that he is hiding something in the data, like possibly the fact that the data is so noisy as to be unusable for the purposes of determining climate trends. Have you ever looked at any raw daily temperature records? I have and they are statistically a dogs breakfast.--Glenn Morton
There is a common misconception that scientific data are public property, or are automatically in the public domain because "taxpayers paid for it". Do you know this for a fact? Do you know this absolutely for the multiple sources of the data in this dataset? None of the data were supported by private funds or efforts? You know that there are no confidentiality agreements that guaranteed access to taxpayers' money in the first place? And which taxpayers? Should a taxpayer in Canada be privy to data paid for, possibly, by German taxpayers? Should there be no assurances that the data cannot or will not be used for any commercial purposes without compensation, which would violate the tax and freedom-of-information policies of many states?
McIntyre is a vocal skeptic, and he should not conceal his ultimate motives, right or wrong, behind the guise of performing a public service. Like many persons involved in this issue, he is an empty vessel. Can't you hear his noise?
Glenn Morton: So you ARE aware that there are legitimate restrictions on what data can be released, unlike your statement to the effect that there is "no legal right to refuse freedom of information requests." So, your argument is merely, what — that you do not believe Jones when he says he has to clear release of data with all principles involved? That you do not believe him when he says he's working on that but it will take some time? ...You appear to be flirting with the idea of simply accusing him and other climate scientists of out-and-out fraud. That is rather a serious accusation, don't you think?
On a side note, yes, I have seen uncorrected temperature data. I also understand why and how corrections are applied to account for known distortions of data from individual sources. Are you suggesting that data with uncorrected distortions from idiosyncratic sources are more reliable than data which take into account the details of source? Or are you claiming that there isn't any data in the world good enough to derive trends from? Interesting; also interesting that so few climatologists would agree with you.
Glenn Morton: On an even more side note, are you the Glenn Morton of "Morton's Demon" and debating creationists? If so, your demon amuses me and is an enlightening metaphor for the creationism debate. I would suggest that you be wary of what other cognitive fields it intrudes into, however, climate "skepticism" being one of them. When there are multiple converging lines of evidence from disparate fields and organisations, this should tell you something.