On July 31, 2009, the purge of public data at CRU reached levels "unprecedented" in its recorded history. Climate Audit reader Super-Grover said that the data purge was "worse" than we expected.

On Monday, July 27, 2009, as reported in a prior thread, CRU deleted three files pertaining to station data from their public directory ftp.cru.uea.ac.uk/.

The next day, on July 28, Phil Jones deleted data from his public file - see screenshot with timestemp in post here, leaving online a variety of files from the 1990s as shown in the following screenshot taken on July 28, 2009.

As readers know, both myself and various Climate Audit readers have requested CRU station data from both the Met Office and CRU. While my initial request to CRU was refused, I asked for a reconsideration and the matter is still outstanding, as are all the other CRU requests. Under U.K. Freedom of Information Act, once FOI requests have been made for information, public authorities are not permitted to "alter, deface, block, erase, destroy or conceal any record held by the public authority, with the intention of preventing the disclosure by that authority of all, or any part, of the information to the communication of which the applicant would have been entitled." As fordprefect observed the other day, the Computer Misuse Act also prescribes various offences, one of which is the unauthorized modification of the contents of a computer with the intent "to prevent or hinder access to any program or data held in any computer".

I was therefore more than a little surprised that on July 27, at about 2:42 p.m. (UK), CRU deleted three files from their data directory ftp.cru.uea.ac.uk/data/ entitled newcrustnsall.dat.Z, newcruextusall.dat.Z and newcrustnsall.hdr. I have before and after screenshots of the contents of this directory showing the deletion, screenshots that I will show below. I also have a screenshot showing the most recent change of the directory and that no other files were changed. [As readers observed, it is possible and perhaps even likely that the files were moved to a concealed location, rather than totally erased, which would present similar sorts of issues for FOI compliance.]

In case you are just joining us, here is some background on the story below. I know the identity of the mole. The ball is now in CRU's court. Steve McIntyre reports below and throws down the gauntlet.

Met Office/CRU Finds the Mole

by Steve McIntyre on July 28th, 2009

More news on the Met Office/CRU molehunt.

Late yesterday (Eastern time), I learned that the Met Office/CRU had identified the mole. They are now aware that there has in fact been a breach of security. They have confirmed that I am in fact in possession of CRU temperature data, data so sensitive that, according to the UK Met Office, my being in possession of this data would, "damage the trust that scientists have in those scientists who happen to be employed in the public sector", interfere with the "effective conduct of international relations", "hamper the ability to protect and promote United Kingdom interests through international relations" and "seriously affect the relationship between the United Kingdom and other Countries and Institutions."

As some WUWT readers may have learned from reading Climate Audit, an anonymous source deep within Hadley CRU has provided Steve McIntyre a copy of a data file he has been seeking but has had his FOI requests to Hadley seeking the same file, rebuked.

I've seen the data. As I posted last night on Climate Audit:

You know, not everyone in every organization believes in everything the organization does. This is why we have leaks in the White House and people like "Deep Throat" that provide evidential tidbits with guidance like "follow the money".

Steve has shared this data and the source with me, as a way of verification, and I can vouch for both the validity of the data and of the source ip address. It truly comes from deep within the organization. - Anthony

While the CRU data file is not the most current, it is the most current one the mole could produce for us.

Let me review the request situation for readers. There are two institutions involved in the present round of FOI/EIR requests: CRU and the Met Office. Phil Jones of CRU collects station data and sends his "value added" version to the Met Office, who publish the HadCRU combined land-and-ocean index and also distribute the CRUTEM series online.

I requested a copy of the "value added" version from the Met Office (marion.archer at metoffice.uk.gov) which has been refused for excuses provided in my last post. On June 25, 2009, learning that Phil Jones had sent a copy of the station data to Peter Webster of Georgia Tech, I sent a new FOI request to CRU ( david.palmer at uea.ac.uk) requesting the data in the form sent to Peter Webster. This too was refused today.

We now have a new excuse to add to our collection of excuses - each excuse seemingly more ridiculous than the previous one.

Pouring cold water on global warming by Terri Jackson a Queens graduate physicist, climatologist and formerly founder of the Energy Group at the Institute of Physics, London

The following article by Terri Jackson was originally published in the Belfast Telegraph in May this year and as you will see from the following communication it was also due to be republished in the Autumn edition of the newsletter of the London branch of the Institute of Physics South East Branch. This is a first class article, but it would appear there was a change of mind concerning the nature of the materiel involved.

Terri contacted ClimateRealists.Com and made the following comments...... when they (the editor) saw that it was against man made global warming and for natural climate change my article was immediately suppressed and I was told it would not be published.

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Dear Terri,

The secretary of the IOP London & South East Branch, Len Lewell, has passed to me your offer of an article written by yourself on global cooling, about a page or so, for the branch newsletter. I understand that the article would include solid scientific facts and proof.

Please accept my apologies for not having contacted you earlier.

I am writing to accept your offer, and would like to include your article in the Autumn issue of the newsletter, which will be distributed to branch members at the beginning of September. Illustrations should if possible be of high definition, and attached separately from the text. The deadline is Monday 20th July.

With best wishes,

Michael Hammond

Editor

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Dear Terri,

I am sorry to say that, as indicated recently, it is not possible to include your article after all.

I apologise for any disappointment caused.

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So here is the Terri Jackson article ........and many thanks for bringing this to our attention.

Billions of tonnes of water droplets vanish from the atmosphere, as if by magic, in events that reveal in detail how the Sun and the stars control our everyday clouds. Researchers of the National Space Institute in the Technical University of Denmark (DTU) have traced the consequences of eruptions on the Sun that screen the Earth from some of the cosmic rays - the energetic particles raining down on our planet from exploded stars. 'The Sun makes fantastic natural experiments that allow us to test our ideas about its effects on the climate,' says Prof. Henrik Svensmark, lead author of a report newly published in Geophysical Research Letters. When solar explosions interfere with the cosmic rays there is a temporary shortage of small aerosols, chemical specks in the air that normally grow until water vapour can condense on them, so seeding the liquid water droplets of low-level clouds. Because of the shortage, clouds over the ocean can lose as much as 7 per cent of their liquid water within seven or eight days of the cosmic-ray minimum.

'A link between the Sun, cosmic rays, aerosols, and liquid-water clouds appears to exist on a global scale,' the report concludes. This research, to which Torsten Bondo and Jacob Svensmark contributed, validates 13 years of discoveries that point to a key role for cosmic rays in climate change. In particular, it connects observable variations in the world's cloudiness to laboratory experiments in Copenhagen showing how cosmic rays help to make the all-important aerosols.

Despite predictions from a top U.S. polar institute that the Arctic Ocean's overall ice cover is headed for another "extreme" meltdown by mid-September, the Environment Canada agency monitoring our northern waters says an unusual combination of factors is making navigation more difficult in the Northwest Passage this year after two straight summers of virtually clear sailing.

In both the wider, deep-water northern corridor and the narrower, shallower southern branches of the passage, the Canadian Ice Service says pockets of more extensive winter freezing and concentrations of thicker, older ice at several key "choke points" are complicating ship travel.

The fabled trans-Arctic sea route, zealously sought by European explorers in centuries past as a shortcut to Asia, is increasingly seen in today's era of rapidly retreating sea ice as a potential highway to resource riches and Arctic tourist destinations.

A record number of vessels passed through Canada's Arctic islands last year, and experts have been predicting a steady rise in ship traffic in both the Northwest Passage and the Northern Sea Route, which connects Europe to eastern Asia along Russia's Arctic coast.

The "heaviest rains in 70 years" lashed Shanghai Thursday, flooding 3,000 homes and leaving nearly 2,000 travellers stranded at the city's airports, state media reported.

Between 80 to 140 millimetres (three to 5.5 inches) fell in most areas of China's largest city, official news agency Xinhua reported, adding that vehicles had been damaged by falling branches. No casualties were reported.

More than 500 workers were deployed to clear the water, which was up to 30 centimetres deep on city roads, the report said.

Pullman, Washington, - A microscopic pathogen and pesticides embedded in old honeycombs are two major contributors to the bee disease known as colony collapse disorder, which has wiped out thousands of beehives throughout the United States and Europe over the past three years, new research at Washington State University has confirmed.

Working on the project funded in part by regional beekeepers and WSU's Agricultural Research Center, entomology professor Steve Sheppard and his team have narrowed the list of potential causes for colony collapse disorder.