“Data storage availability in the 1980s meant that we were not able to keep the multiple sources for some sites, only the station series after adjustment for homogeneity issues. We, therefore, do not hold the original raw data but only the value-added (i.e. quality controlled and homogenized) data.”
I’ve been programming for 50 years. Prior to the availability of cheap disk storage people used tape drives. My first personal computer from the 1980s had no permanent storage other than through an attached cassette drive.
Wow. what a massive scam the govt is doing.
Million times worse than “hide the decline”.
reminds me of Lois Lerner and IRS losing 50000 emails when they got caught targetting the Tea Party, and Illary Linton losing 30K of her own emails on her own server….of course …. it takes 2 to email: so someone must have been on the other end
I worked at the Fed in the mid-80s in a research role.
They had years and years of data on tapes too.
We accessed the data via mainframe computers.
no problems.
This is infuriating. Original data should be preserved is a cornerstone for transparency and trust. Anything else is unacceptable.
Seems Tonys Website is also from the 80ies.
That’s why they tried to erase all his data.
And if this is really an issue – how did they even manage to store all the data in the pre digital era?
There is no technological reason for it, but my own experience of the civil service is that some jumped up clerk harbouring a resentment of scientists will delete data after the mandatory five years or so written into the contract. I imagine this malaise is not restricted to the UK.
Yeah, what a crock! We didn’t save the raw data, only the “value added” (numbers we made up) data. Value added is not data, it is calculations. Marxism is all about destroying truth. Hopefully someone has copies of the original data, which, for better or worse is the only true data.
So when did they decide that they no longer had the ability to store the raw data? Because originally they built their storage system to MEET THEIR CURRENT NEEDS!! So at a later date, they would have had a better system upon which they could have transferred the stored data on a more durable medium, ditto, ditto into the future. And what would have been wrong with just warehousing the reels in an environmentally controlled space, if they were too lazy to transfer it to a more modern system? What shit is stored by the government that has absolutely no meaningful scientific value? Their complete disregard for scientific integrity is why no one should ever believe government “scientists”.
The most funny thing is that one would suppose that temperature data does not need much storage anyway.
Temperature and time dont use much data.
And the location just needs to be named once .
Is it even true that the CRU does not hold the original raw data? In one of the Climategate emails, its director wrote that “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” (email, Phil Jones to Michael Mann, 2nd February 2005).