Archives for August 15, 2009

Regular wobbles in the earth’s tilt were responsible for the global warming episodes that interspersed prehistoric ice ages, according to new evidence.  Read more here.

SIGNIFICANT economic interventions are being planned, that are going to impact on citizens all around the world, based on the premise that global temperatures are increasing. It would thus seem especially important that quality temperature data, the data underpinning the policy, be publicly available.

In fact there are several official temperature data sets and what is publicly available has all been adjusted. Adjustments are made for all sorts of reasons and often multiple times. The number of data bases and the extent of the data manipulation intrigues many amateur and professional statisticians who take an interest in climate change.

Recently statistician and blogger Steve McIntyre was denied access to specific data files at the Climate Research Unit at the University of East Anglia in the UK. This Institution holds the longest official records for global temperatures as measured by thermometers. His request was refused on the basis he is not an academic – presumably meaning he is not currently employed by a University. He is a qualified statistician with an impressive career in private industry and various publications. Anyway, one of his colleagues, who does hold a university position, Ross McKitrick subsequently requested the same data and this request was also rejected, but for different reasons.

According to a recent news item in the academic journal Nature, the refusal is because Phil Jones, the director of the Climate Research Unit, is being inundated with requests. A figure of 56 requests is quoted in the article. This doesn’t seem a lot to me. Furthermore, I don’t understand why the director of the institution would be involved in the processing of such requests. Surely there is an army of technicians who can process such requests particularly given the request is for the raw unadjusted data.  [Read more…] about Raw Temperature Data No Longer Available