re: #228 SixDegrees

Not good.

The questions that need to be asked here, which the author of your link raises as well, are:

- Is the CRU able to reproduce it’s own past results?

- Is enough information and data available for anyone to reproduce CRU’s results?

They are reasonable, fundamental questions that stand at the very core of scientific inquiry. And no, it isn’t “attacking the scientists” to raise such questions. In fact, it’s a necessary step to proving them correct.

It would be much, much easier, and there would be much, much less controversy, if in answer to the question “Where is your original data?” the answer had been “Right here. Feel free to download it.” As I’ve stated before - to howls of derision - preservation of original data is standard in scientific research, for a number of reasons. Under some circumstances, it is a hard requirement; in other cases, it is just common sense. It’s one of the simplest measures available to guard against accusations of fraud, screw ups and sloppiness in research protocols, and it’s surprising, to say the least, to hear that it hasn’t been followed in this case.

But again — that small percentage of raw data was discarded by the CRU nearly 30 years ago. And it was a COPY of the NOAA data. In the 1980s storage capacity was severely limited and very expensive. Why should they retain all raw data, when it exists and is archived already at the NOAA?

No data was destroyed.