[Vision2020] CRU Climate Data "Over 95%" Available: NASA (GISS), NOAA (NCDC) Data Independently Confirm CRU Results

[Paul Rumelhart]

I'm glad they are working towards total transparency now.  They weren't 
as of last August, as you can see in this article:

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/08/13/cru_missing/

So maybe something good is coming out of this whole fiasco.

Paul

Ted Moffett wrote:
> Below read release from the University of East Anglia wesbite, 
> regarding the Climate Research Unit's data availability, Freedom of 
> Information Act requests, the e-mails stolen from their institution, 
> and clarifications regarding the wording "hiding the decline" and 
> "trick" that appeared in these e-mails, that have been in the media 
> recently.  Some graphs at this website page at the bottom are not 
> pasted in, only the text:
>  
> http://www.uea.ac.uk/mac/comm/media/press/2009/nov/homepagenews/CRUupdate
>
>
>   CRU climate data already ‘over 95%’ available (28 November)
>
> Over 95% of the CRU climate data set concerning land surface 
> temperatures has been accessible to climate researchers, sceptics and 
> the public for several years the University of East Anglia has confirmed.
>
> “It is well known within the scientific community and particularly 
> those who are sceptical of climate change that over 95% of the raw 
> station data has been accessible through the Global Historical 
> Climatology Network for several years.  We are quite clearly not 
> hiding information which seems to be the speculation on some blogs and 
> by some media commentators,” commented the University’s 
> Pro-Vice-Chancellor, Research Enterprise and Engagement Professor 
> Trevor Davies.
>
> The University will make all the data accessible as soon as they are 
> released from a range of non-publication agreements.  Publication will 
> be carried out in collaboration with the Met Office Hadley Centre.
>
> The procedure for releasing these data, which are mainly owned by 
> National Meteorological Services (NMSs) around the globe, is by direct 
> contact between the permanent representatives of NMSs (in the UK the 
> Met Office). 
>
> “We are grateful for the necessary support of the Met Office in 
> requesting the permissions for releasing the information but 
> understand that responses may take several months and that some 
> countries may refuse permission due to the economic value of the 
> data,” continued Professor Davies.
>
> The remaining data, to be published when permissions are given, 
> generally cover areas of the world where there are fewer data 
> collection stations.
>
> “CRU’s full data will be published in the interests of research 
> transparency when we have the necessary agreements. It is worth 
> reiterating that our conclusions correlate well to those of other 
> scientists based on the separate data sets held by the National 
> Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and the NASA Goddard 
> Institute for Space Studies (GISS),” concluded Professor Davies.
>
>
> *The University of East Anglia has previously released statements from 
> Prof Trevor Davies, Pro-Vice-Chancellor for Research, Prof Phil Jones, 
> head of the Climatic Research Unit, and from CRU.
>
> Statement from Professor Trevor Davies, Pro-Vice-Chancellor, Research*
>
> The publication of a selection of the emails and data stolen from the 
> Climatic Research Unit (CRU) has led to some questioning of the 
> climate science research published by CRU and others. There is nothing 
> in the stolen material which indicates that peer-reviewed publications 
> by CRU, and others, on the nature of global warming and related 
> climate change are not of the highest-quality of scientific 
> investigation and interpretation. CRU’s peer-reviewed publications are 
> consistent with, and have contributed to, the overwhelming scientific 
> consensus that the climate is being strongly influenced by human 
> activity. The interactions of the atmosphere, oceans, land, and ice 
> mean that the strongly-increasing concentrations of greenhouse gases 
> in the atmosphere do not produce a uniform year-on-year increase in 
> global temperature. On time-scales of 5-10 years, however, there is a 
> broad scientific consensus that the Earth will continue to warm, with 
> attendant changes in the climate, for the foreseeable future. It is 
> important, for all countries, that this warming is slowed down, 
> through substantial reductions in greenhouse gas emissions to reduce 
> the most dangerous impacts of climate change. Respected international 
> research groups, using other data sets, have come to the same conclusion.
>
> The University of East Anglia and CRU are committed to scientific 
> integrity, open debate and enhancing understanding. This includes a 
> commitment to the international peer-review system upon which progress 
> in science relies. It is this tried and tested system which has 
> underpinned the assessments of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate 
> Change. It is through that process that we can engage in respectful 
> and informed debate with scientists whose analyses appear not to be 
> consistent with the current overwhelming consensus on climate change
>
> The publication of a selection of stolen data is the latest example of 
> a sustained and, in some instances, a vexatious campaign which may 
> have been designed to distract from reasoned debate about the nature 
> of the urgent action which world governments must consider to 
> mitigate, and adapt to, climate change. We are committed to furthering 
> this debate despite being faced with difficult circumstances related 
> to a criminal breach of our security systems and our concern to 
> protect colleagues from the more extreme behaviour of some who have 
> responded in irrational and unpleasant ways to the publication of 
> personal information.
>
> There has been understandable interest in the progress and outcome of 
> the numerous requests under information legislation for large numbers 
> of the data series held by CRU. The University takes its 
> responsibilities under the Freedom of Information Act 2000, 
> Environmental Information Regulations 2004, and the Data Protection 
> Act 1998 very seriously and has, in all cases, handled and responded 
> to requests in accordance with its obligations under each particular 
> piece of legislation. Where appropriate, we have consulted with the 
> Information Commissioners Office and have followed their advice.
>
> In relation to the specific requests at issue here, we have handled 
> and responded to each request in a consistent manner in compliance 
> with the appropriate legislation. No record has been deleted, altered, 
> or otherwise dealt with in any fashion with the intent of preventing 
> the disclosure of all, or any part, of the requested information. 
> Where information has not been disclosed, we have done so in 
> accordance with the provisions of the relevant legislation and have so 
> informed the requester.
>
> The Climatic Research Unit holds many data series, provided to the 
> Unit over a period of several decades, from a number of 
> nationally-funded institutions and other research organisations around 
> the world, with specific agreements made over restrictions in the 
> dissemination of those original data. All of these individual series 
> have been used in CRU’s analyses. It is a time-consuming process to 
> attempt to gain approval from these organisations to release the data. 
> Since some of them were provided decades ago, it has sometimes been 
> necessary to track down the successors of the original organisations. 
> It is clearly in the public interest that these data are released once 
> we have succeeded in gaining the approval of collaborators. Some who 
> have requested the data will have been aware of the scale of the 
> exercise we have had to undertake. Much of these data are already 
> available from the websites of the Global Historical Climate Data 
> Network and the Goddard Institute for Space Science.
>
> Given the degree to which we collaborate with other organisations 
> around the world, there is also an understandable interest in the 
> computer security systems we have in place in CRU and UEA. Although we 
> were confident that our systems were appropriate, experience has shown 
> that determined and skilled people, who are prepared to engage in 
> criminal activity, can sometimes hack into apparently secure systems. 
> Highly-protected government organisations around the world have also 
> learned this to their cost.
>
> We have, therefore, decided to conduct an independent review, which 
> will address the issue of data security, an assessment of how we 
> responded to a deluge of Freedom of Information requests, and any 
> other relevant issues which the independent reviewer advises should be 
> addressed.
>
> *Statement from Professor Phil Jones, Head of the Climatic Research 
> Unit, University of East Anglia.*
>
> In the frenzy of the past few days, the most vital issue is being 
> overshadowed: we face enormous challenges ahead if we are to continue 
> to live on this planet.
>
> One has to wonder if it is a coincidence that this email 
> correspondence has been stolen and published at this time. This may be 
> a concerted attempt to put a question mark over the science of climate 
> change in the run-up to the Copenhagen talks.
>
> That the world is warming is based on a range of sources: not only 
> temperature records but other indicators such as sea level rise, 
> glacier retreat and less Arctic sea ice.
>
> Our global temperature series tallies with those of other, completely 
> independent, groups of scientists working for NASA and the National 
> Climate Data Center in the United States, among others. Even if you 
> were to ignore our findings, theirs show the same results. The facts 
> speak for themselves; there is no need for anyone to manipulate them.
>
> We have been bombarded by Freedom of Information requests to release 
> the temperature data that are provided to us by meteorological 
> services around the world via a large network of weather stations. 
> This information is not ours to give without the permission of the 
> meteorological services involved. We have responded to these Freedom 
> of Information requests appropriately and with the knowledge and 
> guidance of the Information Commissioner.
>
> We have stated that we hope to gain permission from each of these 
> services to publish their data in the future and we are in the process 
> of doing so.
>
> My colleagues and I accept that some of the published emails do not 
> read well. I regret any upset or confusion caused as a result. Some 
> were clearly written in the heat of the moment, others use 
> colloquialisms frequently used between close colleagues.
>
> We are, and have always been, scrupulous in ensuring that our science 
> publications are robust and honest. 
>
> *CRU statement*
>
> Recently thousands of files and emails illegally obtained from a 
> research server at the University of East Anglia (UEA) have been 
> posted on various sites on the web. The emails relate to messages 
> received or sent by the Climatic Research Unit (CRU) over the period 
> 1996-2009.
>
> A selection of these emails have been taken out of context and 
> misinterpreted as evidence that CRU has manipulated climate data to 
> present an unrealistic picture of global warming.
>
> This conclusion is entirely unfounded and the evidence from CRU 
> research is entirely consistent with independent evidence assembled by 
> various research groups around the world.
>
> There is excellent agreement on the course of temperature change since 
> 1881 between the data set that we contribute to (HadCRUT3) and two 
> other, independent analyses of worldwide temperature measurements. 
> There are no statistically significant differences between the warming 
> trends in the three series since the start of the 20th century. The 
> three independent global temperature data series have been assembled by:
>
> • CRU and the Met Office Hadley Centre (HadCRUT3) in the UK.
> • The National Climatic Data Center (NCDC) of the National 
> Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) in Asheville, NC, USA.
> • The Goddard Institute of Space Studies (GISS), part of the National 
> Aeronautic and Space Administration (NASA) in New York.
>
> The warming shown by the HadCRUT3 series between the averages of the 
> two periods (1850-99 and 2001-2005) was 0.76±0.19°C, and this is 
> corroborated by the other two data sets.
>
> The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) in its 4th 
> Assessment Report (AR4) published in 2007 concluded that the warming 
> of the climate system was unequivocal. This conclusion was based not 
> only on the observational temperature record, although this is the key 
> piece of evidence, but on multiple strands of evidence. These factors 
> include: long-term retreat of glaciers in most alpine regions of the 
> world; reductions in the area of the Northern Hemisphere (NH) snow 
> cover during the spring season; reductions in the length of the freeze 
> season in many NH rivers and lakes; reduction in Arctic sea-ice extent 
> in all seasons, but especially in the summer; increases in global 
> average sea level since the 19th century; increases in the heat 
> content of the ocean and warming of temperatures in the lower part of 
> the atmosphere since the late 1950s.
>
> CRU has also been involved in reconstructions of temperature 
> (primarily for the Northern Hemisphere) from proxy data 
> (non-instrumental sources such as tree rings, ice cores, corals and 
> documentary records). Similar temperature reconstructions have been 
> developed by numerous other groups around the world. The level of 
> uncertainty in this indirect evidence for temperature change is much 
> greater than for the picture of temperature change shown by the 
> instrumental data. But different reconstructions of temperature change 
> over a longer period, produced by different researchers using 
> different methods, show essentially the same picture of highly unusual 
> warmth across the NH during the 20th century. The principal conclusion 
> from these studies (summarized in IPCC AR4) is that the second half of 
> the 20th century was very likely (90% probable) warmer than any other 
> 50-year period in the last 500 years and likely (66% probable) the 
> warmest in the past 1300 years.
>
> One particular, illegally obtained, email relates to the preparation 
> of a figure for the WMO Statement on the Status of the Global Climate 
> in 1999. This email referred to a “trick” of adding recent 
> instrumental data to the end of temperature reconstructions that were 
> based on proxy data. The requirement for the WMO Statement was for 
> up-to-date evidence showing how temperatures may have changed over the 
> last 1000 years. To produce temperature series that were completely 
> up-to-date (i.e. through to 1999) it was necessary to combine the 
> temperature reconstructions with the instrumental record, because the 
> temperature reconstructions from proxy data ended many years earlier 
> whereas the instrumental record is updated every month. The use of the 
> word “trick” was not intended to imply any deception.
>
> Phil Jones comments further: “One of the three temperature 
> reconstructions was based entirely on a particular set of tree-ring 
> data that shows a strong correlation with temperature from the 19th 
> century through to the mid-20th century, but does not show a realistic 
> trend of temperature after 1960. This is well known and is called the 
> ‘decline’ or ‘divergence’. The use of the term ‘hiding the decline’ 
> was in an email written in haste. CRU has not sought to hide the 
> decline. Indeed, CRU has published a number of articles that both 
> illustrate, and discuss the implications of, this recent tree-ring 
> decline, including the article that is listed in the legend of the WMO 
> Statement figure. It is because of this trend in these tree-ring data 
> that we know does not represent temperature change that I only show 
> this series up to 1960 in the WMO Statement.”
>
> The ‘decline’ in this set of tree-ring data should not be taken to 
> mean that there is any problem with the instrumental temperature data. 
> As for the tree-ring decline, various manifestations of this 
> phenomenon have been discussed by numerous authors, and its 
> implications are clearly signposted in Chapter 6 of the IPCC AR4 report.
>
> Included here is a copy of the figure used in the WMO statement, 
> together with an alternative version where the climate reconstructions 
> and the instrumental temperatures are shown separately. 
>
> ------------------------------------------
>
> Vision2020 Post: Ted Moffett
>
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