Jean Palutikof [from the IPCC and Met Office] on climate realists, to Phil Jones: "The problem is they are like rottweilers - they never give up"

Email 3932

date: Tue, 22 May 2007 12:18:37 +0100 from: "Palutikof, Jean" subject: RE: Interesting thread on Climate Audit to: "Phil Jones"

How very unpleasant.

The problem is they are like rottweilers - they never give up. So the best policy from the TSU point of view seems to me to make it EASIER for them to access stuff, rather than try to slow them down by stashing it at Harvard/National Met Archives. Then at least we can get it all out in the open without having to wade through accusations of trying to prevent them accessing stuff.

Jean [Met Office]

======================== Dr Jean Palutikof Head IPCC WGII TSU Met Office

From: Phil Jones [mailto:p.jones@uea.ac.uk] Sent: 22 May 2007 11:23 To: Palutikof, Jean Subject: RE: Interesting thread on Climate AuditJean, I presumed WG1 would have a digital archive as well. I know they have been getting fed up with CA requests, but their action seems a little obdurate. FYI, UEA has just sent a final letter to one of CA denying them access to the CRU station temperature database, following their request under FOI. I have sent them some data from a 1990 paper - I amazing had this ! - but this wasn't enough for them. I sent rural temperature data, but they wanted the station data that went into the gridded products in 1990! They seem to have forgotten storage problem issues from the late-80s.

Email 2076

Cut out cases where we are leaving obvious low hanging fruit issues that interested parties with a political persuasion could abuse. We're better to avoid leaving ourselves open incase we suddenly find this paper at the centre of a blogstorm (Phil will attest to this)...We need to push it through internal Met Office review before it can be submitted. This means putting it under David Parker and Peter Stott's noses and our making changes to their satisfaction. On the plus side this soft review means less probability of heartache when we come to gambling at the external reviewer long table.  [Peter Thorne]

Email 3838

Occasionally I get to the end of a week and have a little spare time. I then look at Real Climate and Climate Audit. Look at the link above and the story about the USHCN. I began to look at the comments and said to myself - how long will it be before the CRU data are dragged into this. Answer - not long! What Brohan et al were getting at was the issue you know well. Country X or Scientist Y sends some data - saying its been homogenized. We added this data to the database as it looks fine (after some checks). Most of the data were for new stations. They may or may not contain adjustments but we use them, and we don't have the raw data, just what we've been sent! I bet you'll get many more accusations of manipulating the data. The skeptics don't seem to want to accept that techniques get better and new ideas come along. Cheers Phil