date: Wed, 9 Sep 2009 09:12:21 +0100 from: "Thorne, Peter (Climate Research)" subject: RE: Freedom Of Information to: "Phil Jones" Sounds like a whole barrel of laughs. I hope to have booked John at 11 today but taht is hopee rather than expectation. At least his diary said he was free then ...! We've also had something through parlimentary channels from a MP in Bromsgrove I think. It was whilst I was off sick. I am chasing that down and will advise if it adds anything new to the mix. -- Peter Thorne, Climate Research scientist Met Office Hadley Centre, FitzRoy Road, Exeter, EX1 3PB. tel. +44 1392 886552 fax. +44 1392 885681 [1]http://www.hadobs.org ______________________________________________________________________________________ From: Phil Jones [mailto:p.jones@uea.ac.uk] Sent: 09 September 2009 09:04 To: Thorne, Peter (Climate Research) Subject: FW: Freedom Of Information Peter, Here's an email from your Press Officer to ours about a letter from a Stuart Harmon. I modified the intended reply a little and this went back to Dave Britton a few days ago via our press officer. I said the bit about records not being kept should be removed. Our FOI person has ruled that if we get an FOI request from Harmon we can treat it as vexatious! I'm surprised that your press office have bothered to reply to it. Also attaching another thing I got for amusement. This one was sent to the President of the AGU (Tim Grove) and also to Alan Robock. Alan persuaded Tim to ignore it and gave him some of the background. I wasn't aware that Alan was so up to speed with all this - good that he was. The funny thing is that the person in Cornwall sent me a hard copy which arrived last week. He sent me a copy plus the letter he's sent to the Pope. This letter is up in the CRU coffee room. The attachments are amazingly complex and ridiculous. McIntyre has appealed here and that is going through the process. Two others have appealed as well - academics at Anglia Ruskin University and one at Oxford. I have been meaning to check up on the Oxford one, and may send it on. Cheers Phil From: "Dunford Simon Mr (MAC)" To: "Jones Philip Prof (ENV)" CC: "Gook Susan Mrs (MAC)" , "Palmer Dave Mr (LIB)" Date: Tue, 1 Sep 2009 15:45:51 +0100 Subject: FW: Freedom Of Information Thread-Topic: Freedom Of Information Thread-Index: AcocbS5xHTGcjyXjTgefRcdwsOHSfAOnaKpAAAHNl8A= Accept-Language: en-US, en-GB X-MS-Has-Attach: yes X-MS-TNEF-Correlator: acceptlanguage: en-US, en-GB X-OriginalArrivalTime: 01 Sep 2009 14:45:48.0250 (UTC) FILETIME=[E4DBDBA0:01CA2B12] Hi Phil The Met Office would like our comments about a reply they plan to send to Stuart Harmon - see below. Could you let me know asap if you are happy with it. I wonder if the line about records not being kept is unnecessary? And I notice they are not saying that we hope to provide some of the data in the future. I attach the agreed UEA statement as a reference. Over to you... (they're in a hurry by the way). Cheers, Simon Simon Dunford, Press Officer, University of East Anglia, Norwich, NR4 7TJ. Tel:+44 (0)1603 592203 [2]www.uea.ac.uk/comm A PREMIER RESEARCH AND TEACHING UNIVERSITY 2009 "What Uni" Student Choice Award winner and 2nd amongst mainstream English universities in the National Student Survey World top 200, European top 100, UK top 30 (Times League Table 2010) Norwich: fourth highest cited UK city for science, thanks to the University and our Norwich Research Park partners. ___________________________________________________________________________________ From: Britton, Dave [[3] mailto:Dave.Britton@metoffice.gov.uk] Sent: Tuesday, September 01, 2009 3:18 PM To: Dunford Simon Mr (MAC); Richards, Chris Subject: RE: Freedom Of Information Simon, Chris Please see the email below that I plan to send the Stuart Harmon. Do you have any issues/clarifications. A quick response on this would be very much appreciated. Cheers Dave ___________________________________________________________________________________ Stuart, Firsty, I am sorry that I have not responded sooner. Unfortunately I have been away from the office for the last 3 weeks or so. The Met Office and CRU are not in a position to release this data under FOI or otherwise as we have obtained some of the data from scientists and institutions on the understanding that this station data will be be publicly released, mainly as some of the data has a commercial value. We are not in a position to clarify which data sets have been provided under such terms and which have not as records were not kept. As a result we cannot release the data where we have no authority to do so and any such release of data could damage relationships with data providers The Met Office uses the data solely and expressly to create a gridded product that we distribute without condition. I hope this helps Dave From: STUART HARMON To: dave.britton@metoffice.gov.uk; dave.britton@metoffice.gov.uk Sent: Tuesday, 28 July, 2009 11:51:56 PM Subject: Freedom Of Information Dear Mr Britton I am preparing an article on the freedom of information act and would request your comments on why the Met Office is unwilling to release temperature data and methodology. Provided to you is a link to Mr McIntyres web site [4]http://www.climateaudit.org/?p=6623. The article I am proposing is to be based on the unintended consequences of abusing the freedom of information act to prevent the release of information. In summary I pose to posit the following:- 1 The reason for not releasing information is to hide information which will be embarrassing. I will use the MP's expenses to illustrate. 2 Another reason is because the organisation is incompetent. 3 The organisation is politicised and manipulates data to create an intended result. Should the organisation subsequently be guilty of any of the above the unintended consequence of not releasing data is that the organisation will bring British science into disrepute. Which is not in the national interest. Best regards Stuart Harmon 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 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------