Climatic Research Unit (CRU) at the University of East Anglia Releases Data

In a press release, the University of East Anglia in Norwich, England reports:

Climate data released

Wed, 27 Jul 2011

All data sent to the Climatic Research Unit (CRU) at the University of East Anglia by National Meteorological Services around the globe to complete its global land temperature dataset CRUTEM3 will be released today, apart from data from 19 stations in Poland.

The University has been working closely with the Met Office to arrange the release of the remaining data not already in the public domain.

CRU has made its gridded datasets available online for many years, but climate sceptics had asked to see the data as received from National Meteorological Services and research colleagues around the world, who had sent data to the Unit for its research purposes.

Some countries’ Meteorological Services, including Poland’s, had been unwilling to have their data publicly released – some, who charge for this information, for commercial reasons.

Data from Trinidad and Tobago are being released against that state’s wishes. This is because the University is complying with the Information Commissioner’s Office’s instruction to release part of the database which covered the latitude zones 30° N to 40° S.

Professor Trevor Davies, UEA Pro-Vice-Chancellor for Research, said: “We regret having to release data from Trinidad and Tobago against that state’s express wish but we want to place beyond all doubt our determination to be open with our data and to comply with the ICO’s instruction.

“To demonstrate that determination we have made the decision, in discussion with the Met Office, to release the data from latitudes outside the 30° N to 40° S zone, with the exception of some stations in Poland which has explicitly refused permission. This means that data from 5113 weather stations around the world are now released.

“We are very pleased to be in the position now to release data for all but 19 stations and are grateful to the Met Office for its support over the past 18 months and for its major effort in contacting National Meteorological Services to seek their permission for release. In the interest of openness, we have released data from those which have not responded to requests to release.

“We remain concerned, however, that the forced release of material from a source which has explicitly refused to give permission for release could have some damaging consequences for the UK in international research collaborations.”

Research findings from the analysis of the CRUTEM dataset, on the course of global-scale land temperature changes, tally with those of other independent research groups across the world, including NOAA and NASA.

The data are available from Met Office website:


http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/research/climate/climate-monitoring/land-and-atmosphere/surface-station-records

And from CRU:

http://www.cru.uea.ac.uk/cru/data/temperature/station-data/

With explanations at:

http://www.cru.uea.ac.uk/cru/data/temperature/