date: Sun, 9 Sep 2007 10:42:16 +0100
from: "John Mason, Machynlleth, Wales" <johntherock@btopenworld.com>
subject: Re: Query re - raw data
to: "Phil Jones" <p.jones@uea.ac.uk>

   Thanks for that Phil.



   I find all the politics quite interesting: I publish in mineralogy and ore deposit
   formation and never run into much controversy in these relatively mundane subjects!



   My approach is simply to try and explain, repetitively, just what peer-reviewed science is,
   and I try to get forum members to understand the difference between that and
   politically-motivated denialist blogsites! Mind you, having read chapter 2 of George
   Monbiot's "Heat" last night, it looks like a steep uphill climb!



   I know George fairly well - he lives here in Machynlleth - and am tempted to suggest he
   posts to UKWW, but I think the reactions from some of the regulars on there might give us
   moderators too much work!



   So for now I shall keep plugging away and posting links to Realclimate as often as
   possible!



   Cheers - John





   John Mason
   Geological consultancy & Interpretation
   [1]www.geologywales.co.uk



   Severe Weather Photographer
   [2]www.geologywales.co.uk/storms



   Director, Tornado and Storm Research Organisation
   [3]www.torro.org.uk

   ----- Original Message -----

   From: [4]Phil Jones

   To: [5]John Mason, Machynlleth, Wales

   Sent: Friday, September 07, 2007 5:12 PM

   Subject: Re: Query re - raw data

      John,
         Just off home, but had a look at Climate Audit. A thread has just gone up
      on duplication of time series. It might be worth pointing some people
      to this link. Needless to say the document makes the whole issue exceedingly
      complex. I read the document ages ago, and then asked someone at
      NCDC what it meant. Steve McIntyre is reading far too much into it, as usual.
      Smithsonian, WWR and UCAR are not different sources - they are all the same.
      The different sources referred to in the document are different datasets released
      by National Met Services.  They send the data each month, then send it again
      each decade from the 1960s onwards. They have made changes sometimes.
      So the 1960s may have changed the 1950s, the 1970s the 1960s and so on.
      Cheers
      Phil

     At 16:31 07/09/2007, you wrote:

     Thanks, Phil.

     We shall see what these characters make of that. I suspect it will be a case of "And Lo!
     it came to pass that the smiting did continue for evermore..."

     Cheers - John

     John Mason
     Geological consultancy & Interpretation
     [6]www.geologywales.co.uk

     Severe Weather Photographer
     [7]www.geologywales.co.uk/storms

     Director, Tornado and Storm Research Organisation
     [8]www.torro.org.uk

          ----- Original Message -----
          From: [9]Phil Jones
          To: [10]johntherock@btopenworld.com
          Sent: Friday, September 07, 2007 2:14 PM
          Subject: FW: Query re - raw data

           John,
                Have had a look at the discussion blog you help moderate, and you
           seem reasonable. You try to keep discussions civil and cut out ad
           hominens.  I have learnt over recent years to be careful when responding
           as some of my emails later (sometimes years later) appear on various
           blog sites. I occasionally look at some of them, and good to hear that
           you get your information from IPCC and Real Climate. I eventually found the
           quote you are referring to.
                You have probably tried to get British climate and weather data out of
           the Met Office - through BADC. You can for research purposes, but not if
           anything commercial is being undertaken. This situation (which the Met
           Office started by the way) is common around the world. Only the US,
           Australia, Canada and a few other countries put their data up for all to use.
           Even then they put up the raw (as measured) data and have homogenized
           data on another page (which is often not linked from the one with the raw
           data).
               CRU has been collecting the same data (as NCDC and also GISS in the USA)
           over the last 25 years. We get access to real time data (monthly averages which
           come over a WMO system called GTS - the CLIMAT messages). We have an
           agreement with the Met Office Hadley Centre. We also have agreements with
           a number of other Met Services around the world (and also some individual
           scientists) not to pass on the data to third parties, but we are able to make
           the gridded products available - the HadCRUT3 and CRUTEM3 datasets. It is the
           gridded products that other scientists want.
              We have spent a lot of time over the last 25 years assessing the quality of all
           the data - improving some regions/countries when we gain access to improvements.
           Although we've made lots of adjustments (which are documented back in the
          mid-1980s),
           it became clear to us that this type of work is best done in the regions/countries
           as it these groups that have the full station histories. Not many countries though
          have
           the resources to do this. We still make checks periodically, but all the merging
          takes
           time and resources. The national datasets generally come with national numbers
          which
           we then have to determine are stations we had (so replace) or are new.
              GISS have released their data (principally GHCN) but Jim Hansen and others are
           being lambasted for not releasing the code they use. It is all described in their
           papers though and is easily reproducible. Our method of gridding is described in
           numerous papers. Most recently this was documented at
            [11]http://www.hadobs.org/ if you then click on CRUTEM3 and then the paper at the
           bottom right under references. I can't send you the full pdf from JGR as it is
           too large to email. My reason for mentioning this is that if we did release the
           data we use, the same lambasting would happen to us - it does anyway - as
           your email attests to.
           What I would do, in response to the comment, is to suggest that the skeptics
           derive their own gridded temperature data. They can use the GISS data, and then
           assess which stations they want to use etc. They don't want to do this, as it
           is lots of hard work, and it is much easier to criticize. I've suggested this to
           some of them in the past and many other people have as well. Whatever
           the outcome of such an analysis, it would be far more constructive than
           the continued criticism, which most people I know (on this issue and
           many others like Hockey Sticks etc) just ignore. In short if they think
           we're wrong prove it.
           Finally, one other thing.  The first paper we produced on this subject was back
           in 1982. There have, as I said, been numerous ones up to the one you can get
           from last year by Brohan et al.. Why now, are all the requests coming? The whole
           global warming debate doesn't hinge on this one dataset, as is obvious from
           the latest IPCC report.
            If the italics come through, you can use parts of the paragraphs I've italicised.
           These are the 3rd, 4th and 6th paragraphs.
           Cheers
           Phil

          -----Original Message-----
          From: John Mason, Machynlleth, Wales [ [12]mailto:johntherock@btopenworld.com]
          Sent: Friday, September 07, 2007 9:40 AM
          To: Sheppard Sylv Miss (SCI)
          Subject: Query re - raw data
          Hi folks!

          In my spare time, I have the possibly unenviable job of moderating the UK
          Weatherworld climate forum and attempting to defend the science against various
          sceptic activists! One of them has just posted up:

          "The CRU, whose global temperatures are used in the IPCC and various UN reports and
          countless media, don't even disclose its raw data and methods to get its
          temperatures."

          Is there a useful answer that I could give regarding this quite probably mischievous
          statement?

          Cheers - John

          John Mason
          Geological consultancy & Interpretation
          [13]www.geologywales.co.uk

          Severe Weather Photographer
          [14]www.geologywales.co.uk/storms

          Director, Tornado and Storm Research Organisation
          [15]www.torro.org.uk
          Prof. Phil Jones
          Climatic Research Unit        Telephone +44 (0) 1603 592090
          School of Environmental Sciences    Fax +44 (0) 1603 507784
          University of East Anglia
          Norwich                          Email    p.jones@uea.ac.uk
          NR4 7TJ
          UK
          ----------------------------------------------------------------------------

     Prof. Phil Jones
     Climatic Research Unit        Telephone +44 (0) 1603 592090
     School of Environmental Sciences    Fax +44 (0) 1603 507784
     University of East Anglia
     Norwich                          Email    p.jones@uea.ac.uk
     NR4 7TJ
     UK
     ----------------------------------------------------------------------------

