Climategate Researchers Agree to Release Data

The Telegraph is reporting that the "climategate" researchers at the University of East Anglia's Climatic Research Unit have agreed to release all of their temperature data to the public where it can be scrutinized by other researchers. According to the Telegraph:

Professor Trevor Davies, the university's Pro-Vice-Chancellor, Research Enterprise and Engagement, said yesterday: "CRU's full data will be published in the interests of research transparency when we have the necessary agreements. It is worth reiterating that our conclusions correlate well to those of other scientists based on the separate data sets held by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies.

"We are grateful for the necessary support of the Met Office in requesting the permissions for releasing the information but understand that responses may take several months and that some countries may refuse permission due to the economic value of the data."

That's certainly a (way too delayed and begrudging) step in the right direction, but it surely shouldn't take months for data on which the world is relying to guide vast economic and political decisions to be made publicly available.

And there is the nagging thought that their "conclusions correlate well" with other temperature data sets because they all may be making a similar set of errors when compiling their figures.

Whole Telegraph report here.