date: Fri, 31 Jul 2009 10:19:26 +0100
from: mike@tuppambr.demon.co.uk
subject: A couple of questions
to: p.jones@uea.ac.uk

Dr. Jones
I apologise for this intrusion!
Im sure you are aware of the drivel posted on climateaudit 
http://www.climateaudit.org/?p=6654#comments
and wattsupwiththat
http://wattsupwiththat.com/
I have posted there under the name of thefordprefect. For a year or so. 
A bit of background so you can confirm my name. About 2 years ago I was involved with some robust exchanges on a financial BB (ADVFN) and have been taken to court for defamation - the first judgement (now unfortunately appealed!) is here (my name is Tuppen)
http://www.bailii.org/cgi-bin/markup.cgi?doc=/ew/cases/EWHC/QB/2008/1797.html&query=advfn&method=all
 I can post on ADVFN or climateaudit under my pseudonym of thefordprefect to prove my credentials.
I find the current exchange on climateaudit to be very childish and have said so many times.  In doing so I have apparently backed your actions and put my interpretation on your statements.
I was therefore hoping that you could reply to these questions. I will if you agree quote your responses (you may also give an off the record response which will never leave my computer (please make it obvious which is available for publication!).
1.	In this statement:
I should warn you that some data we have we are not supposed top pass on to others.
We can pass on the gridded data - which we do. Even if WMO agrees, I will still not pass on the data. We have 25 or so years invested in the work. Why should I make the data available to you, when your aim is to try and find something wrong with it.
There is IPR to consider.

Is I have suggested you are refusing to give IPR info to others and have used a bit of humour with the 25 years or so part
Is this an incorrect interpretation on my part?
2.	Do you actually have agreements available for some of the data that prevents release to non academics?
Are these paper or email. Since the CRU has been around from the late 80s when the anti AGW were not in existence and data was not being questioned I can understand that these may have been verbal or lost in moves of location.
3.	I understand that upward of 200 FOI requests have been made on the CRU  the attack being instigated and directed by wattsupwiththat and climateaudit. Do you know the cost to the CRU of processing such a FOI claim?
Whilst I can understand your reluctance to speak on such Blogs I am very concerned that they are actually affecting the populaces belief in GW. If you repeat the same crud often enough it eventually gets copied to other blogs and so on.
By the way I have pointed them to this document
http://eca.knmi.nl/documents/ECAD_report_2008.pdf 
Which states that some data is unavailable because of IP agreements with the sources (i.e. they have the same problenm as you)  it has been ignored of course!
Thanks
Mike Tuppen (aka thefordprefect)


