cc: "Glenn McGregor" <g.mcgregor@auckland.ac.nz>, David Parker <david.parker@metoffice.gov.uk>, Ben Santer <santer1@llnl.gov>
date: Thu Mar 19 08:45:33 2009
from: Phil Jones <p.jones@uea.ac.uk>
subject: See the link below
to: "Chief Exec" <chief.exec@rmets.org>

      Paul,

        I sent you this last night, but in another email. I should have sent you two
    emails - apologies. The issues were not linked. This email is to bring your
    attention to the link at the end.
      The next few sentences repeat what I said last might.
    I had been meaning to email you about the RMS and IJC issue of data availability
    for numbers and data used in papers that appear in RMS journals. This results from
    the issue that arose with the paper by Ben Santer et al in IJC last year. Ben has made
    the data available that this complainant wanted. The issue is that this is intermediate
    data. The raw data that Ben had used to derive the intermediate data was all fully
    available. If you're going to consider asking authors to make some or all of the
    data available, then they had done already. The complainant didn't want to have
    to go to the trouble of doing all the work that Ben had done.
    I hope this is clear.
    Another issue that should be considered as well is this.
    With many papers, we're using Met Office observations. We've abstracted these
    from BADC to use them in the papers. We're not allowed to make these available
    to others. We'd need to get the Met Office's permission in all cases.
        This email came overnight - from Tom Peterson, who works at NCDC in Asheville.

     [1]http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/03/18/finally-an-honest-quantification-of-urban-warmi
     ng-by-a-major-climate-scientist/
     "Phil Jones, the director of the Hadley Climate Center in the UK."

    We all know that this is not my job. The paper being referred to appeared in JGR
    last year. The paper is

   Jones, P.D., Lister, D.H. and Li, Q., 2008: Urbanization effects in large-scale temperature
   records, with an emphasis on China. J. Geophys. Res. 113, D16122,
   doi:10.1029/2008/JD009916.
    The paper clearly states where I work - CRU at UEA.  There is no mention of the Hadley
   Centre!
    There is also no about face as stated on the web page.
    Sending this as it gives a good example of the sort of people you are dealing
    with when you might be considering changes to data policies at the RMS.
    Several years ago I decided there was no point in responding to issues raised
    on blog sites. Ben has made the same decision as well.
    There are probably wider issues due to climate change becoming more main stream
    in the more popular media that the RMS might like to consider.  I just think you should
    be aware of some of the background. CRU has had numerous FOI requests since the
    beginning of 2007. The Met Office, Reading, NCDC and GISS have had as well - many
    related to IPCC involvement. I know the world changes and the way we do things changes,
    but these requests and the sorts of simple mistakes, should not have an influence
    on the way things have been adequately dealt with for over a century.

    Cheers
    Phil

     --
     Thomas C. Peterson, Ph.D.
     NOAA's National Climatic Data Center
     151 Patton Avenue
     Asheville, NC 28801
     Voice: +1-828-271-4287
     Fax: +1-828-271-4876

   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
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