Climate e-mails review condemns lack of openness
There was "an ethos of minimal compliance (and at times non-compliance)" with both the letter and spirit of the Freedom of Information Act and the Environmental Information Regulations at the University of East Anglia's Climatic Research Unit.
The unit's "responses to reasonable requests for information were unhelpful and defensive".
That, in terms of access to information, is the main conclusion of the Independent Review of the conduct of the scientists involved in what became known as the "climategate" e-mails affair, which has been published today.
Chaired by Sir Muir Russell, this is the third inquiry report into the controversial revelations following the hacking last November of large quantities of e-mails from the Climatic Research Unit. The unit has played a key role in the international development of climate science.
Today's review calls for a transformation of attitudes amongst the university's senior staff. It argues:
"Public trust in science depends on an inherent culture of honesty, rigour and transparency. The requirements of FoIA and EIR must not be seen as impositions. They are a necessary part of the implicit contract between the scientist and broader society."
The report identifies major flaws in how the scientists and the university administration responded to information requests. The lessons it draws out raise important questions on how freedom of information can apply to academics, scientists and researchers. And some of its conclusions have implications for how all public authorities handle FOI applications.
The review's serious criticisms of the CRU's approach to information requests include the following findings:
"evidence that e-mails might have been deleted in order to make them unavailable should a subsequent request be made for them";
"a tendency to answer the wrong question or to give a partial answer";
"clear incitement to delete e-mails".
While the review strongly criticises the conduct of those scientists who refused to embrace a culture of openness, it is important to note that it also places much of the blame on the broader university administration. It argues that the university's senior management should have accepted more responsibility for implementing compliance with FOI.
One of the most interesting passages concerns the role of UEA's Information Policy and Compliance Manager. The review argues that this post needs to be given more power within the university. It found that "the IPCM may have lacked such standing within the university structure and the authority to challenge the assertions of senior professors".
This point has wider ramifications of significance to all public authorities. A phenomenon familiar to anyone with much experience of FOI is that of a comparatively junior FOI officer struggling to persuade more senior colleagues elsewhere in the organisation that the information they hold really should be released, no matter how annoying the requester is and how uncomfortable the disclosure would be.
In another finding of wider importance, the review stresses that "earlier action to release information" might have minimised later problems. Although the CRU did eventually face a barrage of very similar applications, co-ordinated via a climate sceptic's website, this happened after it had already established a pattern of unhelpfulness in dealing with the earlier, far more limited number of requests.
The review notes that the unit encountered an orchestrated campaign of information requests, but concludes that "CRU helped create the conditions for this campaign by being unhelpful in its earlier responses to individual requests for station identifiers and the locations from which specific, detailed station raw data could be downloaded."
The report will be read carefully, and perhaps with some concern, by other academic researchers, some of whom (particularly those working in controversial areas) are worried about potential implications of FOI.
The review calls on the Information Commissioner's Office to hold consultations on how to distinguish research data which is accepted in the scientific community to validate findings and should be released from other more preliminary drafts and plans.
The review paints a picture of a team of researchers who were dismissive and unhelpful towards outsiders requesting information, and who ended up creating more problems for themselves through this level of obstruction.
It portrays the university administration generally as insufficiently rigorous and focused in applying legal requirements on access to information.
And it constitutes a powerful warning to other academic institutions that openness has to become a deeper part of how they operate.
Update 1455: In reaction to the Sir Muir Russell review, the UEA Vice-Chancellor Edward Acton has accepted criticism of the university's treatment of information requests. He said:
"We accept the report's conclusion that we could and should have been more proactively open, not least because - as this exhaustive report makes abundantly clear - we have nothing to hide. We accept the need for our response to Freedom of Information requests to be positive and appropriate and we are confident that steps we have already taken in this area will improve further the awareness and understanding of the importance of the Act within the University."
Professor Acton also draws attention to how the report's conclusions affect the whole academic community. He says there are broad implications for the accessibility of research in the UK which will have to be considered by the Information Commissioner's Office and others.
I think he is right on this and I suspect this may turn out to be the real long-term legacy of Sir Muir Russell's review - moves towards opening up research material and data to those the academic community have regarded as outsiders. This is a process which many scientists and researchers will feel uneasy about, particularly when it covers work in progress rather than the finished output of their efforts.
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If this means that anyone who asks for it will have access to current (i.e., not completed) research, then how is anyone supposed to get anything done without someone stealing it?
It seems very easy: monitor someone doing something interesting, FOI the data out of them, then publish it yourself with accreditation...
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There is a need for greater openness, but there will also be a need to deal with frivolous and vexatious requests for information. You only have to read the vituperative comments on a column like Geoffrey Lean's on the Telegraph website, or dip a toe into the world of websites and blogs written by those who oppose action on climate change to get a feel for the existence of a dedicated bunch of people. Given half a chance they will chuck mud at any expression of uncertainty, whip up fury over any errors or new finding while determinedly ignoring a mountain of evidence about the broad direction of the science.
It must have been incredibly frustrating to be under siege from such people and their repeated requests for information on everything CRU published - and while the CRU's response was wrong (and in retrospect backfired) they must be given some way of dealing with vexatious individuals determined to hamper their work.
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IMHO this has nothing to do with FOI. Anyone claiming to be a scientist and making scientific claims MUST publish sufficient data for others to scrutinise and replicate their work. If they don't, then other scientists are quite right to be sceptical. It is a fundamental aspect of science - if the work cannot be independently replicated, it will not be accepted.
Everyone at the CRU should have known this, but then UEA has never been particularly strong in the hard sciences. However, they were one of the first to make statements about extreme sea-level rises, and obviously they have found this quite lucrative.
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Objections such as DavCrav's are without merit. In space science, for example, it is customary that data is embargoed for a pre-established number of months so that scientists can work on them, and see their efforts rewarded (and published).
After that period, all data become public.
If you need more time with the data, you ask for more time with the data, but obviously as soon as your article is out, there is little point in keeping anything behind walls.
It's as simple as that and astronomers have been happily living with it for decades. Just get on with it.
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fr33cycler wrote:
"Given half a chance they will chuck mud at any expression of uncertainty, whip up fury over any errors"
The implications of climate research are incredibly far reaching. If all we were expected to do was switch to low energy light bulbs then I doubt anyone would care too much about uncertainty or errors. However, what we are being asked to do is an extreme change in the way we live with enormous economic implications.
People are quite right to scrutinise every single statement on climate research. Ultimately, we would look pretty stupid if we martyr ourselves on the alter of MMGW if it turns out to be like the Millennium Bug, Swine Flu, etc.
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This is not an isolated incident: http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2010/apr/20/climate-sceptic-wins-data-victory
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@5 re: Millennium Bug
Couldn't it be argued the reason the millennium bug didn't cause massive disruption was because of the amount of effort put into fixing it before 00:00 2000?
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Interesting article. However if the BBC are confused on exactly what the outcome if this 'investigation' is, what chance the rest of us? Your report is titled@
"Climate e-mails review condemns lack of openness"
and clearly sets out the criticisms in the report. Roger Harrabins's report is titled:
CRU climate scientists 'did not withold data'
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/science_and_environment/10538198.stm
But you (in your report) said they did (withold data), and by witholding the data, CRU got themselves into a bigger mess later as more and more FOI requests arrived.
I am confused. Is this what happens when a report is published and both sides try to 'spin' the results to journalists?
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You do all realise that climate change is the biggest fruad/hoax going, all this to levy a carbone tax. If you read the leaked e-mail, which I have, they make fun out of all of us.
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With scientific research information, if it is research data that is incomplete, or part of an unfinished project, surely the exemption at s22 of FOIA is appropriate, where reasonable?
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@4: "Objections such as DavCrav's are without merit. In space science, for example, it is customary that data is embargoed for a pre-established number of months so that scientists can work on them, and see their efforts rewarded (and published)."
I asked if this means that FOI will be able to be used to purloin active research before publication. The correct response would be "It is customary not to...", not to say I have meritless objections.
Of course, if the courts recognize that it is customary not to then we have no problem. And obviously courts do exactly what is expected, and never interpret laws differently from what's customary. So no problem at all.
"If you need more time with the data, you ask for more time with the data, but obviously as soon as your article is out, there is little point in keeping anything behind walls."
I didn't know that "I need more time, so come back later" is an acceptable answer to an FOI request.
From a personal perspective, I don't have any data that anyone would want, so this won't affect me. However, I do have lots of research that isn't published, and as far as I can tell there is nothing stopping (frivolous in my case) FOI requests asking for it.
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I recommend reading the FOIA 2000, which is on line at:
http://www.opsi.gov.uk/acts/acts2000/ukpga_20000036_en_1
It contains allowances for not releasing data before publication (for example), details of information that is exempt from release, and allows for costs of releasing the information to be charged, if they are significant.
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Broadly, if a scientific paper is published, there will be an expectation of release of data used.
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Alex wrote: @5 re: Millennium Bug
"Couldn't it be argued the reason the millennium bug didn't cause massive disruption was because of the amount of effort put into fixing it before 00:00 2000?"
I would say not because those countries that put very little effort into the millennium bug fixes did not experience any major problems.
The Millennium Bug was a case of a real problem that was massively (IMO) over exaggerated. There were some cases of it causing some problems with some system. However, it was made out that the world would collapse if we did nothing. Why? I believe that a lot of companies (IT ones) had a vested interest in hyping up the situation because they made a lot of money out of it.
Similarly with Swine Flu - the drugs companies made a fortune off it.
Once large sums of money are involved in anything, we should ask "cui bono" because what starts as an issue can be hyped up into a disaster scenario by certain interested parties who stand to gain.
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#4 is right (in that #1 is wrong).
Once you publish findings your data must come into the public domain along with those findings. It's the only way science can work unless you want to return to the days of alchemy.
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@15: I said: "If this means that anyone who asks for it will have access to current (i.e., not completed) research, then how is anyone supposed to get anything done without someone stealing it?"
You replied "Once you publish findings your data must come into the public domain along with those findings."
So you're telling me I'm wrong because you disagree with something I didn't say? Good good, standard BBC blog-comment ranting then.
I asked -- in response to the last part of the blog: "particularly when it covers work in progress rather than the finished output of their efforts." -- about work in progress, and people who have no intention of reading the post they comment on jump all over me as if I'm some kind of anti-scientist or something. Of course published data should be available, and in my field it generally is, without anyone having to use the law. We don't need lawyers to tell us this, because it's professional integrity. But then I don't work in climate science, so I don't have to deal with nutters with three GCSEs thinking they are somehow experts in science because they have a blog. (I'm not implying that anyone here is a nutter, just that they exist.)
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Why do you keep quoting Dr Benny Pieser as a headline opinion former on this issue? Seeing his name next to his so called 'Global Warming Foundation' gives the impression that this man is a front line scientist or researcher, and his organisation on a par with the Royal Society.
He is not and it is not. The 'Dr' in his title refers to work in other academic arenas. His status has not resulted from primary research into our climate. Furthermore, he has a proven record of misrepresenting the work of others and has had to apologise for doing so.
By all means publish his views along side mine and others in these postings (believe me he is no more rigorously qualified) But when you look for an authoritative quote - use a real climatologist/earth scientist with skeptical views - and before you reply that you can't, hink about why that might be.
Non academic defenders of the mainstream consensus, like George Monbiot, never claim to be anything other than journalists and certainly don't need tinpot organisations to bolster them.
PS - I note Pieser has dismissed Muir's findings out of hand (as usual) but I wonder if he could state preciseley what would convince him these scientists haven't hidden contradictory data. Could he clearly state these criteria? What would satisfy him?
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@DavCrav: glad to see I misunderstood your comment. I guess data can be safely withheld under this http://www.opsi.gov.uk/acts/acts2000/ukpga_20000036_en_3#pt2-l1g22 for a reasonable amount of time.
But if you read the link at #6, there are other people arguing the insane notion that scientific data are a form of (perpetually held?) IPR. That's the end of science as far as I am concerned.
No wonder genes themselves have been patented...
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1. At 3:06pm on 07 Jul 2010, DavCrav wrote:
If this means that anyone who asks for it will have access to current (i.e., not completed) research, then how is anyone supposed to get anything done without someone stealing it?
It seems very easy: monitor someone doing something interesting, FOI the data out of them, then publish it yourself with accreditation...
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What they were talking about was raw data from published articles - really the raw data should have been available, although not necessarily published with, the research itself........ FOI should never have been brought into it (other than that they were not allowing access).
Not that you have give up all your data before you've even used it as soon as someone asks for it.
But once it's published it ALL should be out in the open - that is SCIENCE!
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Simon Ward says
"Everyone at the CRU should have known this, but then UEA has never been particularly strong in the hard sciences. However, they were one of the first to make statements about extreme sea-level rises, and obviously they have found this quite lucrative"
I happen to be a UEA graduate and I can tell you for a fact that UEA has a very good reputation in Chemistry and Biology, and has arguably the world's leading Environmanetal Science department. I'd like to know how Mr. Ward comes to this judgement, and I'd also suggest that one treats his other comments with a high degree of scepticism.
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DavCrav: Section 22 of the FOIA exempts any information from disclosure that is held "with a view to its publication, by the authority or any other person, at some future date (whether determined or not)" and was, I imagine, drawn up to prevent exactly the kind of situation you describe.
The Act (along with all other Acts of Parliament) is easily accessible on http://www.opsi.gov.uk and http://www.statutelaw.gov.uk. Perhaps it's worth, y'know, actually reading it before you try to comment on it. Just a thought.
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I don't believe that the everyday peon (including me) has even got close enough to smell the truth about climate change.
Clearly something is happening to the planet, especially around the Arctic regions.
There are also more droughts, earthquakes, floods, hurricaines, etc. Meanwhile, raw data is going astray, getting lost, or getting destroyed.
Why?
There are two major things that I believe are going on:
a) Current warming trends are affecting our entire solar system - polar caps pn Mars are shrinking, ice is melting on Jupiter's moons, and some planets are getting brighter (hotter). Why is the entire solar system getting warmer? My speculation is that am extremely large - maybe an asteroid, maybe a planet is nearing planet earth. I believe that there is another planet with an extremely long trajectory i.e. @ 3,600 years. When this planet passes, as it has several times before, it wrecks havoc, melts ice, displaces earth crust, causes floods and earthquakes. In short, it is devastating to planet earth and all of its inhabitents.
b) WMD that interphere with the ionsphere, like HAARP and SURA. These systems can be checked out by a simple Internet Search. You should also be able to find the United Nations' condemnation re the use of such technologies. The United Nations would have no reason to ban technologies that do not exist. Other WMDs are monitored. Why is no monitoring (even acknowledgement) happening with HAARP and SURA?
Whatever you believe, do not believe that CO2 could cause all this destruction all by itself. CO2 is a prime life-giving product in our atmosphere. Plants need it; animals give it out. CO2, carbon capping and all that nonsence is just that - pure nonsence, a distraction away from signficant, major, and life-threatening truths.
Conclusion: "climate e-mails review condemns lack of openness", and you know what?
We peons will never get openness until the tidal waves role and the mountains fall.
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For reasons often associated with university budget, most research concludes with: further research is needed. Research in progress should not have to be made available to everyone in the community with some political or religious agenda with the intent of ending the research. Science is like most things and is a developmental process. Research is protected in the private sector to guard against competitors and sometimes consumers. If researchers must be guarded in every e-mail and paper or draft, frank discussions about that research will not happen within that sceintific community. Should the research on the enigma machine been made public at that time?
I have never heard if there was any prosecution of those who conducted the illegal hacking of the e-mails from an institution. Did the ends justify the means?
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