It might also be good to have another try at the current level. This is not just a normal bureaucratic issue, this is science, or it’s supposed to be.
It would be interesting to see how explcit and precise a statement you can get that the CRU is not keeping scientific records.

Willis,

It seems you have achieved some success. I agree that the response is a bit hard to parse. They still say they can’t tell you how to get the data they use, but they apparently have and will provide a list of stations including coordinates, elevation, name, and WMO number. It seems Palmer was only offering a list of names. What they don’t say is if this list will be representative of the stations used in the CRU compilations or simply a list of stations. You may wish to seek clarification on that point.

I work for the U.S. government and have some experience with our own FOIA. It may be that you are asking for information, whereas the system is designed to provide documents. If the information you seek is not specifically contained within certain records the agency is under no obligation to compile that information for you. I suspect that your request is being deliberately interpreted by CRU as requiring compilation of information and hence they are unable to provide it.

My suggestion is to take what you can get out of this effort, provided it is actually responsive to your request and not simply a list of all meteorological stations in the world. I recall stating this in another post somewhere, but for future requests you’ll want to request specific records. Bear in mind that the term record or document should be interpreted liberally by the information officer to include paper copies, emails, data files, etc., as long as they are captured in your request. Some examples of requests to make are:

– all data files, notes, and documents that identify met stations used in all versions of the HadCRUT
– all data files, notes, and documents that identify any and all of the following for each station: station name, station latitude, station longitude, station elevation, station WMO number, etc.
- all data files, notes, and documents that indicate where, how, and/or when the met data for each station was acquired by HadCRU, including URL if available.
- all data files, notes, and documents that indicate any met stations for which the distribution of the met data is restricted and what said restrictions are.
- all data files, notes, documents or printouts that assess the consistency, quality, uncertainty, or integrity of met data used in the
- excluded from this request are the actual met data used in generating the HadCRUT compilation.
- excluded from this request are the resultant gridded data from the HadCRUT compilation.

Just some thoughts. This is what the information officer will be looking for, at least in my experience. Good lucking getting that list of stations on the web!

If you asked them for “any record, whether in paper, electronic, or other format, that identifies the source of raw data used for PAPER X – including records found in the research notebooks or other papers of Dr. Jones or other UEA personnel…” and they refused to provide access to Jones’s papers b/c of academic freedom – that would be a good issue to appeal.

It sounds like they are offering to identify station locations on the CRU website, but only if you demand it.

You should ask that they do so, whether you intend to appeal their decision on raw data or not. Somebody could use it. If this were US administrative law, I’d guess you have no chance of winning an appeal. UK law may be similar. The Info Commissioner would likely only do a review of what has already been discovered – not do an independent investigation. An appeal is probably more appropriate where the authority below admits they have the data in question but refuses to turn it over b/c of a claimed exemption. That would be a legal question, the sort determined in an appeal.

This doesn’t mean you can’t make another request, asking for any records that ID the off-site source(s) of raw data, for example.

Mark