Raw data on global temperatures now available

Raw climate data and global temperature records from the UK's Met Office (yes, the data that prompted hackers to break into the emails of climate scientists) is now publicly available for download. (Via New Scientist and Margie Kinney)

• [chrisspurgeon]

  Data visualization friends of mine are already drooling over this, and are busy hacking together various display tools.

  But I fear that folks who think global warming is at best hogwash and at worst a vast conspiracy will read no further than the very first sentence of the website, where it says this…

  “Download a subset of the full HadCRUT3 record of global temperatures.”

  I can hear them now, “SUBSET?!?! They’re selectively holding back the data that shows that their is NO global warming! ”

  • [silkox]

    There’s no way to reach those who have concluded global climate change is at best hogwash and at worst a vast conspiracy. Not about this topic, anyway. Trying to help them understand how science works in general is the best we can do. That’s why Maggie’s post last week about the history of the global cooling myth was so useful.

    • [chrisspurgeon]

      True that. Totally agree.

• [Sean Inglis]

  “yes, the data that prompted hackers to break into the emails of climate scientists”

  Your characterisation of this is woeful. There is no evidence of a break-in of any kind. If you believe there is, cite it, and let the constabulary know while you’re on.

  Analysis of the structure and content of the zipped release makes it far more likely it was an internal leak by a whistle-blower.

• [Jim Richardson]

  Is this the same raw data that they claimed they no longer had, and couldn’t release because they had deleted it to make room for the “adjusted” data? 

  • [Dennis Loranger]

    No. Yes. Pick the one that makes you happy, Jim.

• [Jim Richardson]

   ”For your eyes only…Don’t leave stuff lying around on ftp sites – you never know who is trawling them. The two MMs have been after the CRU station data for years. If they ever hear there is a Freedom of Information Act now in the UK, I think I’ll delete the file rather than send to anyone….Tom Wigley has sent me a worried email when he heard about it – thought people could ask him for his model code. He has retired officially from UEA so he can hide behind that.” – Phil “Hide The Decline” Jones to Michael “Hockey Stick” Mann  

  Wonder if he did delete the rest as he said he would? is that why it’s only a subset? 

  If not, why is it only a subset? what % of the total data was released? 

  • [Dennis Loranger]

    Context, Jim, context. When honest scientists get death threats from your ilk what do you expect them to do?

    • [Jim Richardson]

      a) what are my “ilk”? Is that an attempt to demonize your opponent rather than debate him?
      b) what death threats? 
      c) Do you expect a scientist to delete the data?  

      ” I think I’ll delete the file rather than send to anyone…”

      Is that open source science?

      • [Dennis Loranger]

        Your ilk dismisses honest scientists with contempt: referring, for instance, to Michael “Hockey Stick” Man. And your contempt seems groundless since, so far, you haven’t shown the faintest trace of expertise allowing you to judge Mann’s work.

        As for the death threats. Here ya go, Jim: http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/dec/08/hacked-climate-emails-death-threats

        As for deleting the file. Did he? Proof?

        • [Jim Richardson]

          “Honest scientist” ?  folks who don’t want to release their data, mangle the data to fit their political agenda, that’s your definition of “honest scientist”

          Let’s not forget that the data released so far was only done after repeated FOIA requests in the UK, and in fact, only released the data after being ordered to do so by the ICO. 
           
          “Two of the scientists involved in “Climategate” – the e-mail hacking incident at the Climatic Research Unit (CRU) of the University of East Anglia, UK – have been emailed death threats since the contents of their private e-mails were leaked to the world. No further information can be revealed about these particular threats at present because they are currently under investigation with the FBI in the United States.”
          So, two folks get email death threats from unnamed sources, and you assume it was my “ilk”?

          Interesting demonization attempt. 

          I didn’t claim he deleted any file. I asked if he did.  He stated he would, and the data released so far is, as has been stated, only a subset of the full data set.  

• [anharmyenone]

  Yay! Open source climate science!

• [Andrew Davies]

  Prediction:  No surprises in the data, but plenty of climate change denier stories using cherry picked sub-sets, or less than honest interpretations.

  That said, I’m glad the data is out.  Open data should be the norm in scientific research.  Sure, sure, there are plenty of reasons it’s not (academic competitiveness, extra work, general snootiness), but on the whole open data’s a no brainer. 

• [Dennis Loranger]

  “”Honest scientist” ?  folks who don’t want to release their data, mangle
  the data to fit their political agenda, that’s your definition of
  “honest scientist”"

  Prove it. Prove that Michael Mann mangled his data.

  • [Jim Richardson]

    http://strata-sphere.com/blog/index.php/archives/13342

    from that link –

    The “trick” was of course, to truncate the divergent data, to replace it with the instrumental records for the same period and then to smooth the spliced series so that the join was no longer visible. The sentence is the Spiegel article seems to suggest that this “swap, splice and smooth” process could reasonably be described as a “mere” fudge.
    This one sentence raises many objections. Is fudge actually distinct from fraud? Is fudging a trifling thing that can reasonably be tossed aside by attaching it to the word “mere”? And where does the “swap, splice and smooth” technique really fit in among these terms.

    –

    there’s one example.

    • [Dennis Loranger]

      Wow, Jim! That is some amazing hand-waving that you quoted there (undoubtedly you were too busy to translate their gibberish for us mere mortals). But, please, share your source’s mysterious jargon. Submit this argument to a refereed climatology journal. I’m sure real scientists will be thrilled to hear how your homies outsmarted every other climatologist on the planet. Go for it, dude! Your career awaits you.

      • [Jim Richardson]

        the amusing part, is that no matter what I post, you will hand wave it away. You’ve got “no true scotsman” fallacy down pat.  You asked what data he’d mangled, and I gave you one example. You hand wave it away, rather than offering any actual rebuttal. 

        It would have been nice to have a debate, with you presenting facts, and honest rebuttal, rather than the dogma you are wedded to.

• [Dennis Loranger]

  Jim, you gave me link to a blog, that is based on discussion that was occasioned by an article in Der Spiegel. Not one of the people, including yourself, in this chain of discussion has any expertise whatsoever in climate science. And that’s just a fact.

• [Filip Hráček]

  I hacked together a quick script and converted the data to something that is usable in Fusion Tables (where you can visualize on map and otherwise).

  Here it is:
  http://www.google.com/fusiontables/DataSource?snapid=S231723SZOU

  UPDATE: Import restrictions (and a bug) on FusionTables’ side has been circumvented. Now uploading.