When Climate Models Drive Policy but Hide Their Data

There are two straightforward reasons why the refusal to share the underlying data behind climate change computer models is indefensible. The research is publicly funded, which means the results belong to the public by default. That is not a complicated principle. Open sourcing publicly funded research is a basic condition of scientific accountability, and the refusal to meet that condition raises immediate questions about what is being protected and why.

The second reason cuts even deeper. These models are not academic exercises. They are serving as the direct basis for policy proposals that carry serious and in some cases draconian consequences for how societies function. When the evidentiary foundation for that kind of policy impact is kept from scrutiny, the problem is no longer just scientific. It becomes a question of whether the people affected by those policies have any legitimate means of evaluating the case being made against them. That is a question that deserves a straight answer.