date: Tue, 27 Feb 2007 17:04:53 -0000 from: "Mcgarvie Michael Mr \(ACAD\) k364" subject: FW: FW: Jones et al 1990 (FOI_07-09) to: Phil, Dave Palmer has responded as below. We have received a request and the issue is whether we deal with it under FOIA or the EIR mentioned below. As this may be the beginning of a stream of these I wonder whether half an hour round a table with you, Dave Palmer and myself might be useful and help us to focus what we should do here? If you agree I will try and arrange this. Thanks Michael ___________________________________________________________________________________________ From: Palmer Dave Mr (LIB) l212 Sent: 27 February 2007 14:40 To: Mcgarvie Michael Mr (ACAD) k364 Subject: FW: FW: Jones et al 1990 (FOI_07-09) Michael, Having looked at the site below (and found numerous other references to the requester online), I can understand Phil's reluctance to respond. However, unless the request is unclear, we have a valid request. However, how we deal with it is another matter. A number of issues present themselves 1. Do we 'hold' the data? - Is it UEA that actually holds this information? If it is on disks in Phil's possession outside the UEA, there might be an argument - comes down to a matter of control - if these were done as part of his work at UEA, the requester could argue that UEA effectively is the 'holder' of the data... 2. EIR vs. FOI... this is technically, actually an EIR (Environmental Information Regulations) request! There are some advantages to treating it as FOI as under EIR (eg. there is no 'appropriate limit') BUT there are more advantages to treating it under EIR. For example, we can extend response time to 40 working days, and, the only 'vexatious' test is manifest unreasonableness and I think that this might be a possibility depending upon the circumstances surrounding the acquisition of the information (see DEFRA site for this issue at: [1]http://www.defra.gov.uk/corporate/opengov/eir/pdf/guidance-7.pdf) (General EIR guidance at: [2]http://www.defra.gov.uk/corporate/opengov/eir/guidance/index.htm) I would suggest that we treat as EIR and go from there.... we will either have to reject it completely as vexatious or answer it... there is NO appropriate limit under EIR but our chances of calling it vexatious are higher and we have longer to respond. We can also charge but there will be some work to pull that off (ie. create fee structure that we can send to the requester) Am happy to meet to discuss this further.... this is a complex request.... Cheers, Dave ___________________________________________________________________________________________ From: Phil Jones [mailto:p.jones@uea.ac.uk] Sent: Monday, February 26, 2007 10:25 AM To: Mcgarvie Michael Mr (ACAD) k364; david.palmer@uea.ac.uk Subject: Re: FW: Jones et al 1990 MIchael, David, I don't really see this as an FOI request. I am really loathed to send them the data even if I could find it. The paper was published in 1990 and the work done in 1989. The work was done years before there was the FOI. The data used were from the Soviet Union, Australia and China. One of the reason's for not helping them is this link. [3]http://www.climateaudit.org/ and then click on the story called 'Phil Jones and the Dutiful Comrades' The story (for want of a better way of describing it) was written by the person who has asked me for the data. I would ask you to skim the story and read the tone of it and some of the comments on the site. No matter what I do or say will make one bit of difference to their attitudes. It will just waste my time. If you want me to go through this pointless exercise then it is only me who can do this and with a number of trips away, I don't have the time before the last week of March. As an aside - the data we have for Malye Karamkuly is almost complete from about 1920 until 1988. This one happens to be the first one in the list. The 1990 paper had co-authors from Russia, China, Australia and the US. The Russian/Soviet data were received from the Russian. He is now working in the USA. Best Regards Phil At 08:44 23/02/2007, Mcgarvie Michael Mr \(ACAD\) k364 wrote: Phil, Dave Palmer has logged the recent email to you (copied to him) as another FOIA request. I can see that we might be into a run of these given the website you directed us to last week. I am sorry that my optimism that the previous request was a one-off has been unfounded. Under FOIA we have 28 days to respond - the same principles apply as with the previous request (ie is data publicly available somewhere else; is the length of time to assemble these specific data sets too costly etc). Dave will respond formally on behalf of the University (and I guess that this may also end up posted on a website somewhere). Let me now how you want to proceed here. Best wishes Michael Michael McGarvie Senior Faculty Manager Faculty of Science Room 0.22C University of East Anglia Norwich NR4 7TJ tel: 01603 593229 fax: 01603 593045 [4]m.mcgarvie@uea.ac.uk ___________________________________________________________________________________________ From: Palmer Dave Mr (LIB) l212 Sent: 22 February 2007 20:45 To: Mcgarvie Michael Mr (ACAD) k364 Subject: FW: Jones et al 1990 Michael, I will log this as another FOI request - different requester and different request I think.... Back to Phil for more input? Cheers, Dave ___________________________________________________________________________________________ From: Steve McIntyre [[5]mailto:stephen.mcintyre@utoronto.ca] Sent: Thursday, February 22, 2007 5:15 PM To: Jones Philip Prof (ENV) f028 Cc: David Palmer Subject: Jones et al 1990 Dear Phil, a couple of years ago, I requested the identities and data for the Russian, Chinese and Australian networks studied in Jones et al Nature 1990 on urbanization. At the time, you said that it would be unduly burdensome to locate the information among your diskettes as the study was then somewhat stale. However, I notice that Jones et al 1990 has been cited in IPCC AR4 (in the section where you were a Coordinating Lead Author) and continues to be cited in the literature (e.g. Peterson 2003). Accordingly, I re-iterate my request for the identification of the stations and the data used for the following three Jones et al 1990 networks: 1. the west Russian network 2. the Chinese network 3. the Australian network For each network, if a subset of the data of the data was used, e.g. 80 stations selected from a larger dataset, I would appreciate all the data in the network, including the data that was not selected. In each case, please also provide the identification and data for the stations used in the gridded network which was used as a comparandum in this study. Thank you for your attention. Steve McIntyre 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 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------