cc: Andrew Watson , Meric Srokosz , lkeigwin@whoi.edu, plemke@awi-bremerhaven.de, ewwo@bas.ac.uk, r.r.dickson@cefas.co.uk, Simon.J.Brown@defra.gsi.gov.uk, mccave@esc.cam.ac.uk, haugan@gfi.uib.no, studhope@glg.ed.ac.uk, B.Turrell@marlab.ac.uk, rwood@meto.gov.uk, sfbtett@meto.gov.uk, j.m.slingo@reading.ac.uk, p.j.valdes@reading.ac.uk, j.lowe@rhbnc.ac.uk, jym@soc.soton.ac.uk, pc@soc.soton.ac.uk, k.briffa@uea.ac.uk, m.hulme@uea.ac.uk, ppn@nerc.ac.uk, cvy@nerc.ac.uk, cg1@soc.soton.ac.uk, nth@nerc.ac.uk, nrc@nerc.ac.uk date: Thu, 6 Dec 2001 18:08:03 +0000 (GMT) from: Paul Valdes subject: Re: Rapid draft Science and Implementation Plans to: Jochem Marotzke Jochem et al., RAPID has a clear deliverable of "a proven field-tested cost-effective design for an operational THC monitoring system". Surely ,this means that we must first focus on the design, and not be in a rush to spend money on an incomplete set of observations. I referred to this in my previous email, and Andy and Nick both seemed to support the need to work on the design, not to launch straight into the observations. In particular, do we have an adequate definition of what we should be measuring? Every large scale operational atmospheric/remote sensing observational programme that I've seen has had a clear statement of what needs to be observed and to what level of accuracy. Is this already published for the THC? If so, could you tell me where it is. My feeling is that a useful measurement should be defined in terms of the model projections. These are predicting a maximum decrease of 1Sv per decade, but with some models showing considerably less. Thus ideally the monitoring programme should be able to observe to less than 1Sv per decade. Do we know how to deliver this? As for the science plan, I agree that it covers most of the key areas and that the implemenation plan is in many ways more important. However, ABRUPT was originally budgeted for 16M. With it's merger with PRESCIENT it now has 20M. I'm not sure if I see 4M worth of extra science. This either means the original ABRUPT budget was wrong or that figures are getting inflated. Perhaps if there was a clearly stated measurement programme, with more stringent requirements, then I would be able to better understand where the money is going. The cynic in me says that even if we had received 40M, I would still be receiving emails saying lets keep it focussed on only one aspect of Rapid Climate Change! Cheers Paul ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Prof. Paul Valdes Dept. of Meteorology, Email: P.J.Valdes@reading.ac.uk University of Reading, Phone: + 44 118 931 6517 Earley Gate, Whiteknights, Fax: + 44 118 931 8905 PO Box 243 Htpp: www.met.rdg.ac.uk/~swsvalde Reading. RG6 6BB. UK -----------------------------------------------------------------------------