Turns out that these folks had an excellent reason for resisting FOI requests; they destroyed much of the data on which their theory of temperature change is based.

Jonathan Leake writing in the Times OnLine:

SCIENTISTS at the University of East Anglia (UEA) have admitted throwing away much of the raw temperature data on which their predictions of global warming are based.

It means that other academics are not able to check basic calculations said to show a long-term rise in temperature over the past 150 years.

The UEA's Climatic Research Unit (CRU) was forced to reveal the loss following requests for the data under Freedom of Information legislation.

The data were gathered from weather stations around the world and then adjusted to take account of variables in the way they were collected. The revised figures were kept, but the originals - stored on paper and magnetic tape - were dumped to save space when the CRU moved to a new building.

The admission follows the leaking of a thousand private emails sent and received by Professor Phil Jones, the CRU's director. In them he discusses thwarting climate sceptics seeking access to such data.

In a statement on its website, the CRU said: "We do not hold the original raw data but only the value-added (quality controlled and homogenised) data."

The CRU is the world's leading centre for reconstructing past climate and temperatures. Climate change sceptics have long been keen to examine exactly how its data were compiled. That is now impossible.

The very temperature studies upon which the IPCC made their famous recommendations in 2004 and again in 2007 - the only empirical data on man made temperature increases used to justify Kyoto and now Copenhagan - is impossible to reproduce because the original datasets have been lost.

There may indeed be other observations made by hundreds of scientists over the years that point in one way or another to man made effects on the temperature. But most of it is inconclusive. Tree ring studies, ice core samples, and other measurements that reflect rising temps can be explained by other means, or are generally perceived to be less accurate.

The CRU temperature studies were the Holy Grail of Climate science - the singular bit of "hard" evidence that pointed the finger at man's culpability for an alarming rise in temperatures. But with the original data lost forever, it is now impossible for other scientists to duplicate the experiments.

Mann and Jones have now promised to release all the data they have. Of course they will. With the missing baseline temps from weather stations around the world, it will be impossible to prove that they really did "cook the books."

And given the fact that the Copenhagen conference is going ahead as scheduled, with everyone from Obama to the lowliest NGO pretending everything is just fine with climate science, Mann and Jones will probably get away with their unscientific behavior.

The alternative would mean that a large group of very important scientists would have to re-examine their basic assumptions upon which their theories rest. And given what's at stake - billions in grant money and their own prestigious reputations - it is likely that this will all be swept under the rug and they will try to continue as they have before.

Clearly, it is up to the alternative media to continue to hype this story, get the truth out before Obama and other world leaders sell our sovereignty and economies down the river in the name of saving the planet. Only by informing the public and keeping them informed will there be a chance to stop the drive for control by the statists.