


In 2004, retired businessman Stephen McIntyre asked the National Science Foundation for information on various climate research that it funds. Affirming "the importance of public access to scientific research supported by U.S. federal funds," the Foundation nonetheless declined, saying "in general, we allow researchers the freedom to convey their scientific results in a manner consistent with their professional judgment."




When it comes to questionable accounting, independent researchers cite the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and its National Climate Data Center (NCDC) as the most egregious offenders. The NCDC is the world's largest repository of weather data, responsible for maintaining global historical climate information. But researchers, led by meteorology expert Anthony Watts, grew so frustrated with what they describe as the organization's failure to quality-control the data, that they created to provide an up-to-date, standardized database for the continental U.S.

Mr. McIntyre also notes unsuccessful attempts to get information from NOAA. For the record, NOAA told us that it took quality-control "very seriously," as well as transparency, and that all of its datasets were available to the public—except those "protected by prior agreement," such as "commercially purchased with limited distribution, proprietary for internal use only, researcher limited."

Even politicians and activists—for whom robust wrangling is meant to be a specialty—resist open discussion about climate science. See Al Gore, and his repeated refusals to debate critics such as Denmark's Bjørn Lomborg.

Which brings us back to CRU, and calls to prosecute whoever exposed its sanctum. U.S. Senator Barbara Boxer has said "email-theft-gate" requires "looking at a criminal activity which could well have been coordinated." Senator Boxer has so far shown considerably less appetite for investigating the various attempts to thwart or obstruct FOIA requests that the leaked emails have brought to light.

Most of the participants in Copenhagen seem intent on rushing headlong into a successor to the Kyoto Protocol. But it would seem more fruitful at this point to redouble our efforts to figure out what we do and don't know about the climate's past, present and future. That includes casting some much-needed sunshine on the data on which so much importance is being placed, but which so far has remained shielded from public view.