CRU to release all its data … sort of

Now that Climategate is heating up, the scientists at the Climatic Research Unit at the University of Anglia have agreed to release all their data to the public.

From The UK Telegraph: 

The U-turn by the university follows a week of controversy after the emergence of hundreds of leaked emails, "stolen" by hackers and published online, triggered claims that the academics had massaged statistics.

In a statement welcomed by climate change sceptics, the university said it would make all the data accessible as soon as possible, once its Climatic Research Unit (CRU) had negotiated its release from a range of non-publication agreements. 

First, one has to wonder why this information was never made public from the get go. One would think with so many world governments willing to wreck their economies over climate change, that the very data supporting climate change would have been exposed to the light of day already.

While exposing this data to millions will seem to be the answer to clearing up the whole climate change debate once and for all, there seems to be a major fly in the ointment. This from the UK Times Online [emphasis added mine]: 

SCIENTISTS at the University of East Anglia (UEA) have admitted throwing away much of the raw temperature data on which their predictions of global warming are based.

It means that other academics are not able to check basic calculations said to show a long-term rise in temperature over the past 150 years.

The UEA’s Climatic Research Unit (CRU) was forced to reveal the loss following requests for the data under Freedom of Information legislation.

The data were gathered from weather stations around the world and then adjusted to take account of variables in the way they were collected. The revised figures were kept, but the originals — stored on paper and magnetic tape — were dumped to save space when the CRU moved to a new building.

The admission follows the leaking of a thousand private emails sent and received by Professor Phil Jones, the CRU’s director. In them he discusses thwarting climate sceptics seeking access to such data.

In a statement on its website, the CRU said: “We do not hold the original raw data but only the value-added (quality controlled and homogenised) data.”

In other words all we are going to see is data that has already been manipulated with no way of proving just how the data was manipulated. The more you peel back the onion here, the more man made climate change is looking like a big fat hoax carried out by a bunch of bullies masquerading as scientists. 

It will be interesting to see if the Democrats are still going to be willing to push Cap and Trade with climate change looking so shady. It will also be one hell of a YouTube moment when some enterprising journalist corners Al Gore on Climategate.

Via: Memeorandum

Via: UK Telegraph

Via: UK Times Online