Dept. of Speechlessness

From The Register (bold type original, italics added):

The world's source for global temperature record admits it's lost or destroyed all the original data that would allow a third party to construct a global temperature record. The destruction (or loss) of the data comes at a convenient time for the Climatic Research Unit (CRU) in East Anglia - permitting it to snub FoIA requests to see the data.

The CRU has refused to release the raw weather station data and its processing methods for inspection - except to hand-picked academics - for several years. Instead, it releases a processed version, in gridded form. NASA maintains its own (GISSTEMP), but the CRU Global Climate Dataset, is the most cited surface temperature record by the UN IPCC. So any errors in CRU cascade around the world, and become part of "the science".

Professor Phil Jones, the activist-scientist who maintains the data set, has cited various reasons for refusing to release the raw data. Most famously, Jones told an Australian climate scientist in 2004:

Even if WMO agrees, I will still not pass on the data. We have 25 or so years invested in the work. Why should I make the data available to you, when your aim is to try and find something wrong with it.

I don't have the stomach to comment, Neil Craig does:

Since their story has repeatedly changed it is obviously impossible to believe any of them. If the we accept Professor Jones assurance that he simply refuses to hand over the data then the claim that they have been destroyed is a lie. If we accept the claim that they have been destroyed then the statement that they are being kept because of untraceable confidentiality agreements is a lie. If it is confidentiality agreements then the claim that it is the Professor's decision is a lie.

For more, go here.