date: Mon, 28 Jan 2002 12:12:58 +0000 from: John Turnpenny subject: Re: Fwd: UKCIP02 datasets to: Mike Hulme ,x.lu@uea.ac.uk,iain.brown@ukcip.org.uk Hi Iain, some answers to your questions.... >>From: Iain Brown >>To: m.hulme@uea.ac.uk >>Subject: UKCIP02 datasets >>Date: Fri, 25 Jan 2002 17:05:45 -0000 >>X-Mailer: Internet Mail Service (5.5.2653.19) >> >>Mike, >> >>After reading Appendix 8 of the recent Scenarios Draft, these are the >>oustanding questions regarding the UKCIP02 datasets >> >>1. Some of the datasets referred to in Appendix 8 are not represented in the >>5km baseline climatology being produced by the Met Office (snowfall rate, >>relative humidity, cloud cover, radiation, soil moisture, surface latent >>heat flux, specific humidity). Where then does the 5km observed dataset come >>from to facilitate the downscaling interpolation and where do users get >>their baseline? OK - the inclusion of all those variables at 5 km was a mistake in the original table which has now been rectified. >>2. Soil moisture - how is this parameterized? Impacts studies generally use >>PET to derive water budgets and therefore expecting PET. Does the GCM/RCM >>not include a surface moisture flux (related to the latent heat flux)? Also >>what does the "missing data is0.1e+5" term in the table next to soil >>moisture refer to exactly. Soil moisture is defined as the moisture in the root zone (ie. available for evapotranspiration). There is no surface moisture flux explicitly included as an output, although of course surface latent heat flux is there. I'm afraid I don't know any mroe details than that - Richard Jones at the Hadley Centre is a better bet for more detailed information on parametrizations (richard.jones@metoffice.com) The "missing data" comment has now gone. >>3. As HadRM3 is an atmospheric model, it is appreciated that the only >>climate variable relating to the marine environment will be SSTs as >>extrapolated from adjacent air temperature. This only requires a 50km grid >>but extending 100-200km offshore and referenced to either a simulated or >>observed baseline. For all variables we will provide the 50 km data for the whole UK window, including marine.... apart from soil moisture :) >>4. Radiation. A recent meeting with John Page suggested a web link to the >>European Solar Atlas and SODA radiation toolkit would be a good idea, so we >>propose to do this. There are also issues here about how the GCM/RCM >>parameterizes radiation compared to conventional models. OK, will add to the list at the back of the report. I have the SoDA address (http://soda.jrc.it) but not the Atlas - could you email it to me ASAP as it will need to go with the rest of the cover text to the designer sooner than the rest of the report. >>5. We need to know whether the simple interpolation from 50km down to 5km is >>based on raw values or % not decided yet. Any preference? >>6. At the moment, the 50km data is change fields only. On reflection, it may >>also be necessary to provide the baseline (1961-90). This would mean that >>there is some baseline data for Ireland. Also as we are increasingly >>stressing the importance of model validation, it would provide the >>opportunity of calibrating and testing impact models at this scale rather >>than 5km. Yes, we could give you all these data, if you don't mind the volume! We have a rough (note to Xianfu: CULU) timetable worked out. This would involve sending a first test batch of data files/pdfs in the week 18 - 22 Feb, which then gives you 2 - 3 weeks to play around with them, and deal with any format or storage problems. Then from 11 March we will send the whole lot. Although, importantly, are we going to keep the data files here and the website will have 'jump-to' links, or are you going to store all the data at UKCIP? The first would reduce the volume of traffic. Cheers, John