[Go-essp-tech] What is the risk that science is done using 'deprecated' data?

[Jeffrey F. Painter]

Let's go back to Stephen Pascoe's risk #2, which I think is the most 
serious one:

2. Users are unaware of new versions available and therefore using deprecated data

Wearing one of my hats, I am one of those users, and in the following 
respects a typical user.   I have 9 variables from 3 datasets, from each 
of 20 data centers.  When I downloaded the files, I didn't write down 
any version numbers.  How am I to know when one of them has 
significantly changed?

Wearing another hat, I have the checksums for most of the CMIP5 data 
files on the network, so I can deal with it.   But most users would have 
serious trouble discovering when data is obsolete.   Nobody wants to 
spend hours every week checking all the data nodes for updates, and then 
checking each dataset with a new version to see which files were 
substantively affected.

- Jeff Painter