date: Mon Sep 10 15:50:50 2001
from: Tim Osborn <t.osborn@uea.ac.uk>
subject: Re: NERC fellowship
to: tim@tosborn.free-online.co.uk

j.lough@aims.gov.au

At 11:12 31/08/01 -0400, you wrote:
>Thanks for your message. I think you are following just the right avenue.
>I think we are reaching the end of the "pattern recognition" stage of
>climate-proxy relationships. The next stage is to try to understand the
>physical and biological responses to direct climatological forcings, such
>as you are proposing.
>
>This is the avenue that we are now following with respect to the
>subsurface temperature archive (the borehole record). We have just
>received funding from the U.S. National Science Foundation for a project
>carrying the title "Generation of the Subsurface Geothermal Climate Signal
>by Land Surface Processes in the North American Mid-continent" We are
>using an LSP model that is driven by incoming short and long wavelength
>radiation, and incorporates vegetation models, soil moisture, latent heat
>effects during winter, snow cover, etc.
>
>You asked about difficulties to be overcome -- there are many!! We should
>talk more about this, but I don't have time to elaborate right now.
>
>Please feel free to mention me as a potential collaborator. Best regards
>to Phil Jones.

Dear Henry,

Many thanks for this encouraging response.  I am still finalising the description of my proposed research, but in the meantime I have come up against a problem, which is that the UK NERC funding agency prefer to fund scientist who change to a new institution for a fellowship.  I intend to counter this by saying that I have agreed to visit several UK and overseas institutions during the fellowship for about 4 weeks each.  Given your positive response and your NSF project to follow a similar approach, I thought that Michigan would be a suitable institution to visit.  Do you think that this would be possible?  If it would, then a letter of support would help by chances of success.  This would be very short, simply making these points:

(1) Professor Henry Pollack (Department of Geological Sciences, University of Michigan) supports the possibility of a collaborative visit from Dr. Tim Osborn to aid him in the completion of his proposed research.
(2) The benefits for Dr. Osborn will be training, advice and data related to the simulation of borehole temperature profiles from surface climate forcing and interpretation of results.
(3) The Dept of Geological Science should also benefit from Dr. Osborn's collaborative visit, receiving results related to the reliability of climate model simulations and assessments of the response to external forcings of various climate proxies.

[modified if necessary].

Please let me know if this is possible.  If yes, the letter should come to me (maybe by fax since the deadline is end of this week!) so I can include it with my application.  I'm very sorry for the short time scale.  If you don't have time, or feel that it isn't appropriate anyway, then that's fine - please let me know.

Cheers

Tim