date: Fri, 17 Mar 2000 10:32:27 +0000 from: "Noguer, Maria" subject: Box etc... to: 'tar10 ' Dear all, I have been following your discussions about the "box" and it is great to see how each of you have expressed their sincere opinion always taking into account the scientific integrity of what you are doing. I have realised that all of you are concerned about the way to present the climate change information by regions and as many of you have pointed out, it is an issue where not all of you agree. I will try to give you my opinion, suggestion and realistic way to proceed at this stage. Let me first remind you that the selection of regions to present regional climate information had already been done in IPCC90. At that time only GCM results were available and 5 regions were chosen: Central North America, South East Asia, Sahel, Southern Europe, Australia. Results for temperature and precipitation were presented in the Validation Chapter (Table 4.2, pg. 116). They did not attempt to give a best estimate of all the models, they just presented the mean for each of the models compared to observations. The next chapter of IPCC90 showed estimated of changes in areal means of temp and precip over those selected regions (Table 5.1, pg. 156). Taking this as a background, it would not be the first time for IPCC to present information by regions. Besides, the addition of the regional Chapter in the TAR is "asking" for this kind of information. My opinion is that some way to summarise the contents of the Chapter by selected regions is a very good idea. Now, from all the discussions that you have been having through Email, it is clear that there is not an easy way to do this. My suggestion to tackle this problem is the following: 1. Realistically, it will be impossible to put something (a box? a Table? a map?) together before the government review. At least something that all of you would be happy with. I agree with you that this "box" is important and it has to be properly presented or not presented at all. There are then two options: 1.a. Present a cut down version of the "box" with the results and regions that all of you are happy with as a place holder for the complete box". 1.b Not to include it at this stage, work on it, and present it as a result of the governments and experts comments. I am sure this kind of information will be asked by the Governments and if they don't do it, Sir John will. 2. Regarding the "box" itself: It has to be a summary of what is already in the Chapter. It cannot contain information that has not been mentioned within the Chapter. My understanding was that the draft that Filippo and Peter put together was only an indication of the sort of material that you might want to include. If all the information that they put together were to be included in the box, such a box would not be easy to read and it would loose value. Concentrate only on the "robust" results, that is, pick regions or results where your are most confidence. Needles to say there should be a disclaimer in bold saying "Confidence in these estimates is low!!!".... If the results presented in the box are just a summary of what you have in the Chapter, as it should be, then I think including references in the box will not be needed. 3. Logistic: If everybody is happy to try to pull all these information together in a "box" or similar, it might be a good idea to get together in person. I know everybody is very busy and tired of travelling, but email sometimes is not as effective as it seems and it can lead to many misunderstandings. Perhaps we could have a conference call sometime next week to express our opinions on the suggested way to proceed, and perhaps to convene a 1day meeting to construct the"box". I am happy to help you putting together the "box" or any other kind of medium that you might choose to convey the message of the chapter. Please let me know if this sounds reasonable, Regards, Maria PS: and thanks again for working so hard ...... ********************************************************************** Dr. Maria Noguer IPCC WGI Technical Support Unit Hadley Centre for Climate Prediction and Research The Met Office London Road Bracknell Berkshire, RG12 2SY UK Tel: +44 (0) 1344 854938 Fax: +44 (0) 1344 856912 e-mail: mnoguer@meto.gov.uk www.met-office.gov.uk www.ipcc.ch **********************************************************************