For completeness, I think there’s yet another (!) version of Jones’ description of NMS/confidentiality agreements that I don’t see in this post, i.e., Keenan’s May 2007 correspondence with Jones.

I just saw it while reading your 2008 summary of CRU correspondence: http://climateaudit.files.wordpress.com/2008/05/cru.correspondence.pdf

———

May 25, 2007, Keenan Letter to Jones

According to Steve McIntyre, some of your raw station data was obtained from National Met Services who asked you to not disclose that data. Is this correct? If so, will you send me a list of the countries with which CRU/UEA has such non-disclosure
agreements? Or, if it is easier, direct me to an appropriate person to ask for this?

———

May 31, 2007 Jones Reply to Keenan

Dear Doug,
I have done some searching in files – all from the period 1990-1998. This is the time when we were in contact with a number of NMSs. We have also got datasets from fellow scientists and other institutes around the world. All supplied data (eventually and sometimes at cost), but we were asked not to pass on the raw data to third parties, but we could use the data to develop products (our datasets) and use the data in scientific papers.
It is likely that some of the NMSs and Institutes have changed their policies now – and that the people we were corresponding with (all by regular mail or fax) are no longer there or are in different sections. The lists below don’t refer to all the stations within these countries, nor to all periods, but to some of the data for some of the time.

The NMSs
Germany, Bahrain, Oman, Algeria, Japan, Slovakia and Syria

Scientists/Institutes (data for these countries)
Mali, India, Pakistan, Poland, Indonesia, Democratic Republic of the Congo (was Zaire), Sudan and some Caribbean Islands

These are the only ones I can find evidence for. I’m sure there were a few others during
the 1980s, but we have moved buildings twice since 1980.

Not sure how you will use this data.
Phil Jones

———

The stations that we have released are all those in the Met Office Hadley Centre and University of East Anglia Climatic Research Unit gridded land surface temperature database (CRUTEM3) except 19 stations from Poland for which the national meteorological service which owns the underlying station data has not given permission to release.

In 1991, an update to the gridded data set (ndp020r1) re-iterated this description of provenance of station data, noting that all station data was available online.

JONESSH.DAT is uncorrected, but is the gridded SHEM1990.ANO corrected? NDP022R2.DAT seems to include marine data, is the land-only result somewhere?

I believe the reason for requiring such agreements is much simpler. Many meteorological services (incluing the UK Met Office) charge for supplying data and realise that allowing it to be put on line would end that lucrative market. In many cases the charges can be hundreds of pounds for a decade or so of monthly data for 4 or 5 parameters.

I have a file called “all.zip” which I put in a folder I named “CRU-all”. It has folders numbered from 1 to 98, though not all numbers are represented. Each folder has numbered files of temperature for different periods but none later than October 2009.

I seem to recall that at one stage the CRU put online the data from countries for which they had no confidentiality agreement. The problem is I can’t remember where I got it from. Does anyone recognise it?

Viewed from their vantage point, their thought process, on learning of Steve’s requests for data and code, was (perhaps in rapid succession):

1. McIntyre is asking for the data and the code.

2. This is different from everyone else.

3. This is dangerous.

4. This must be prevented by any means available.

Perhaps not unheard of in research.

But, when you add factor in the presence of government backing of the scientists, with all the implicit reserve powers that go along with that … you have the makings of something especially unsettling.

RTF

Climategate 3341. 3 Dec 2008.
When the FOI requests began here, the FOI person said we had to abide by the requests. It took a couple of half hour sessions – one at a screen, to convince them otherwise showing them what CA was all about. Once they became aware of the types of people we were dealing with, everyone at UEA (in the registry and in the Environmental Sciences school – the head of school and a few others) became very supportive. I’ve got to know the FOI person quite well and the Chief Librarian – who deals with appeals. The VC is also aware of what is going on –
Phil Jones to Tom Wigley, CRU.