[bwd2]

A publication generally has a page limit

I'm sorry, but this statement doesn't make any sense in the digital era. I can download closing prices for nearly every traded US stock over its entire existence in spreadsheet format from Yahoo for free. I downloaded binaries for an entire operating system to run the computer that I'm typing this reply on for free. "Page limit" is not a reasonable excuse for a scientist whose work is funded by the public. I have no doubt that a researcher who was willing to make data available in a digital format that is compatible with commonly used tools such as R would be able to find an outlet willing to host this data for public consumption. In fact, I would almost see this step as a requirement in today's technological environment. How many extra pages would be needed to cite a URL from which further details could be retrieved?

If someone with an honest intention asks about the methods or the data

This statement makes even less sense than the last one. The scientific soundness of data or method is unrelated to the intention of the analyzer. Publishing full details of the analysis can only strengthen confidence in the conclusion that has been reached. Only someone with reservations about the conclusion would seek to obscure the steps in the process by which it was reached.

[lucumo]

> I'm sorry, but this statement doesn't make any sense in the digital era.

There are very few peer reviewed online journals. So everything posted online is without the benefit of peer review. Writing exclusively online therefore will not work; hence you're already page limited for one part of your publication. You could write two papers, but a) the effort required is a lot more and b) the longer one (for online publication) will still not be peer reviewed.

And really, if any competent climatologist can understand and infer some steps in your processing, why mention or explain them?

As for data, I don't think it will be very hard. It would probably require one or two days of collecting though. However, I doubt the demand is very high, among competent climatologists anyway. If it was, I would assume this would be common practice.

> This statement makes even less sense than the last one. The scientific soundness of data or method is unrelated to the intention of the analyzer. Publishing full details of the analysis can only strengthen confidence in the conclusion that has been reached. Only someone with reservations about the conclusion would seek to obscure the steps in the process by which it was reached.

If the requests for more information come from competent climatologists, I would have no argument with you. But that's not the case; at least in those cases we're hearing about. The requests are made by economists, politicians and people who have stated—without data to back them up—in the past they don't "believe" in climate change. Some even going so far as to call it a conspiracy—it never was clear to me what the climatologists were conspiring to do, though.

If the requests comes from competent scientists, you can rely on their personal integrity. If it comes from people with no scientific background, you can't. They have little to no understanding of the subject or the methods involved. You can be quite sure that that won't stop them from trying to interpret the data. Their conclusions are certain to be wrong, and—due to their preconceived notions—are certain to call into question: the integrity of the data, the integrity of the scientist, the integrity of his institute and the integrity of all climatologists. Most of the time explicitly too!

Since those guys are opinion leaders, the only effect would be another news article stating climate change doesn't exist and that it's all a big lie by climatologists. An article based on the pre-conceived opinion of an incompetent "user" of scientific data.

That doesn't strengthen confidence in the conclusion being reached; it weakens it. People should listen to the climatologist in such a situation, but they don't. They listen to the one who preaches the opinion they already had.

So refusing the data to those with ill intentions isn't based on reservations about the conclusion—it's based on the reservations about the intentions of the requester.

And all that is because people aren't playing "science" any longer, they are playing "politics". It's a different game and it has different rules.