GOVT-FUNDED RESEARCH UNIT DESTROYED ORIGINAL CLIMATE DATA

by Christine Hall
October 5, 2009

Govt-Funded Research Unit Destroyed Original Climate Data
CEI Petitions EPA to Reopen Global Warming Rulemaking
Washington, D.C., October 6, 2009―In the wake of a revelation by a key research institution that it destroyed its original climate data, the Competitive Enterprise Institute petitioned EPA to reopen a major global warming proceeding.
In mid-August the University of East Anglia's Climate Research Unit (CRU) disclosed that it had destroyed the raw data for its global surface temperature data set because of an alleged lack of storage space. The CRU data have been the basis for several of the major international studies that claim we face a global warming crisis. CRU's destruction of data, however, severely undercuts the credibility of those studies.
In a declaration filed with CEI's petition, Cato Institute scholar and climate scientist Patrick Michaels calls CRU's revelation "a totally new element" that "violates basic scientific principles, and "throws even more doubt" on the claims of global warming alarmists.
CEI's petition, filed late Monday with EPA, argues that CRU's disclosure casts a new cloud of doubt on the science behind EPA's proposal to regulate carbon dioxide. EPA stopped accepting public comments in late June but has not yet issued its final decision. As CEI's petition argues, court rulings make it clear that agencies must consider new facts when those facts change the underlying issues.
CEI general counsel Sam Kazman stated, "EPA is resting its case on international studies that in turn relied on CRU data. But CRU's suspicious destruction of its original data, disclosed at this late date, makes that information totally unreliable. If EPA doesn't reexamine the implications of this, it's stumbling blindly into the most important regulatory issue we face."
Among CRU's funders are the EPA and the U.S. Department of Energy - U.S. taxpayers.
Read the CEI petition to the EPA.
Read more about the data dump: The Dog Ate Global Warming, by Patrick J. Michaels