cc: Edward Cook date: Mon, 2 Jun 2008 07:45:38 -0400 from: Edward Cook subject: Re: Palaeoclimate uncertainites to: Keith Briffa Hi Keith, Thanks for the forwarded email. Was the graphic from Jonathan as well? An inquiry now. There is a new post-doc in stats at Columbia via New Zealand, Matthew Schofield, who wants to work on using hierarchical Bayes modeling to explicitly quantify reconstruction uncertainty literally from the standardization step all the way to the final reconstruction simultaneously. He wrote a rather horrid paper on this topic, submitted to the International Journal of Climatology, using a terribly simplistic simulation to "prove" that his method was demonstrably better than what we have done in the past. His lack of understanding of what we do came through load and clear. To his credit, Matt contacted me without knowing that I was a reviewer of his paper and we set up a meeting to discuss his work. Manu Lall, my genius colleague here who know hierarchical Bayes very well, came along too. I showed Matt a powerpoint presentation on the whole matter of tree-ring standardization and its impact on climate reconstruction using Tornetrask data over the AD interval as an example. Matt came away with a far better understanding of the issues and the realization (drummed by me into his head) that he needs to work with real tree-ring data to demonstrate his case in a believable manner. So the question I have to you is can I give Matt the Tornetrask data to work with in his hierarchical Bayes modeling? Manu and I would work directly with him and it would be great to have you involved as well of course. I would be extremely careful in telling Matt about the Tornetrask data being strictly for his private personal use in collaboration with us. He seems like an honest, earnest, young man who just needs a bit of expert guidance to avoid simple mistakes in using tree rings. The payoff could truly be quite special. Are you on board? How is Amy doing? Will the operation be this week? Cheers, Ed ================================== Dr. Edward R. Cook Doherty Senior Scholar and Director, Tree-Ring Laboratory Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory Palisades, New York 10964 USA Email: [1]drdendro@ldeo.columbia.edu Phone: 845-365-8618 Fax: 845-365-8152 ================================== On Jun 2, 2008, at 4:34 AM, Keith Briffa wrote: DKIM-Signature: v=1; a=rsa-sha256; c=relaxed/relaxed; d=gmail.com; s=gamma; h=domainkey-signature:received:received:message-id:date:from:to:subject:mime-version:conten t-type; bh=bPj0nPrRkf3uRSSEvmdzt88vE3KQvg24Fcnfo+uwq/4=; b=tH0a/lXpdfuFF2YjK1qs3FwmbZoB64143dl1g+4NANFLeo2YJ9d7MIC6IUqTN6wlbDfd8kHZMjZq6OGfU2bGkGtCV +pFdX5HiswElx/7biiQB8aBSx4b0yWzcwh8/CtEkOY3FsD1/ks11MLkoyIQ//73NithHtsg90coE8QQAUE= DomainKey-Signature: a=rsa-sha1; c=nofws; d=gmail.com; s=gamma; h=message-id:date:from:to:subject:mime-version:content-type; b=okxgxreOtlMfn/kzmex18sP5YZJ0FQ9HtbCAOPjC/XeykImY510sP+Bo8vKO/5EIbDtiHhbvyhew+Vh+kHF6FVliY 13xw5b8mTXTBkI1BSVoyuJ5bOknFxDFbukkxwEvyjiOmijPvMZ1XUcWhFfzWdUTil7FiUyJqHLTLXl4pdE= Date: Sat, 31 May 2008 15:18:42 +1200 From: "Jonathan Palmer" <[2]gondwanadendro@gmail.com> To: "Keith Briffa" <[3]k.briffa@uea.ac.uk> Subject: Re: Palaeoclimate uncertainites X-Canit-CHI2: 0.00 X-Bayes-Prob: 0.0001 (Score 0, tokens from: @@RPTN, f023) X-Spam-Score: 0.00 () [Tag at 5.00] HTML_MESSAGE X-CanItPRO-Stream: UEA:f023 (inherits from UEA:10_Tag_Only,UEA:default,base:default) X-Canit-Stats-ID: 4057944 - d414a12b12cb (trained as not-spam) X-Antispam-Training-Forget: [4]https://canit.uea.ac.uk/b.php?i=4057944&m=d414a12b12cb&c=f X-Antispam-Training-Nonspam: [5]https://canit.uea.ac.uk/b.php?i=4057944&m=d414a12b12cb&c=n X-Antispam-Training-Spam: [6]https://canit.uea.ac.uk/b.php?i=4057944&m=d414a12b12cb&c=s X-Scanned-By: CanIt (www . roaringpenguin . com) on 139.222.131.185 X-UEA-Spam-Score: 0.3 X-UEA-Spam-Level: / X-UEA-Spam-Flag: NO Hi Keith Many thanks for including me in the net of opinions being sought. Here are some comments and thoughts to use/ignore. Sorry for the delayed response. 1) sources of climate interpretational uncertainty how can this be quantified and represented? Not sure on how to deal with this (you and Steady are my hopes here!). I do however want to push interhemisphere differences in data availability leading to interpretational uncertainty. We simply haven't got the same network coverage of sites as seen in NH. Also, the most interesting stories emerging are not aligned to the conventional PEP (North-South) associations - for example the interdecadal pacific oscillation with the atlantic multidecadal oscillation. 2) strategies for reducing these uncertainties? My main barrow-push here would be to step-up international research programs and particularly in the SH. Better spatial coverage. For example, we in NZ are progressing too slowly due to a very limited funding pool. Read: NZ has multi-species potential, Tassie has Huon pine, Ricardo has S America. Perhaps we need to develop a network (with you and Steady) that aims at leveraging funding? Can you come south? Steady is coming next year Jan-March for a couple of weeks - can you join us? 3) database / data archiving needs and ideas? Misses the point. Major crisis looming here are the physical samples. We are loosing the trees. Steady can tell you about his efforts in SE-Asia. In NZ, we have 40,000 year old ancient kauri being mined. I reckon it will be exhausted within 10 years. The holocene sites in 5 years. Saw-millers are already starting to buy farms so that they can secure some future supply. We have set-up an archive at a local museum for biscuits of kauri for future research programs. In other words I have adopted a fire-fighting approach - save as many samples as I can and hope there might be funding to work on them later. Steady has funded me over the last 5 years to collect silver pine (Halocarpus biformis) from the West Cost. We have multi-millennial chronos thanks to that investment - but some sources have been completely destroyed by the land being converted to dairy pastures. The other area is now a kiwi habitat sanctuary so the permit process for further sampling has become much harder. So, data archiving is vital, but I'm first trying to save samples! So far I have 20' container and 4.5 x 6m shed with my samples stored in them. I am starting to use Filemaker Pro for a relational database for all the data - a wonderful example of this type of application was presented at INQUA by Phil Barrat at QUB (former PhD of Mike Baillie but the silly sod burnt his bridge there). I'm using a similar approach to Phil and have also roped in Gretel Boswijk at Auckland Uni. We are both going to use the same database template and will store copied of each others archive (for insurance etc). I have attached a copy of the template. Other: Your UK Department for International Development (DFID) has announced it will spend 100m stirling on research in developing countries "into the impacts of climate change on the poorest and most vulnerable people and helping communities, governments and the private sector take action to help prepare for these impacts". My point is they are saying more detailed climate impact models (with known uncertainties) might be useful for the UK - it isn't for developing countries. What the developing countries need is grass-roots adaption strategies. The science needs to not only be published in peer-reviewed (western) journals but also other communication channels - such as video, community visits and the mass media. A starting point might be the expectation that some publications are published "locally" (and translated). This ofcourse means we are sacrificing our citation profile etc. and currently means any academic losses potential RAE ranking. However, funding agencies like NERC could be encouraged to make this a requirement (and this would then hopefully spill into the RAE system). Gotta go. Am en-route to Karachi for 3+weeks working for Steady. Let me know how it goes. Cheers Jonathan 2008/5/16 Keith Briffa <<[7]mailto:k.briffa@uea.ac.uk>[8]k.briffa@uea.ac.uk>: A General Call for Input to a Meeting on Palaeoclimate Uncertainties PLEASE NOTE - this message has been sent to a representative selection of those working in different tree-ring laboratories - please forward to those of your colleagues who would be interested - THANK YOU Dear Colleagues, I have been tasked with drafting the 'White paper' in the general topic of 'Reducing Uncertainties', in my case with a focus on tree-ring data. This is meant as the basis for discussion at a wider meeting dealing with various high-resolution proxy data, being held in Trieste funded by PAGES/CLIVAR. Hence I am asking for specific input from any of those among you who wish to contribute specific points or stress, even briefly or as concepts, areas of concern regarding present work or future requirements. The context is general dendroclimatology and the use of tree-ring-derived climate reconstructions specifically for establishing the precedence of instrumental observations in a recent multi-millennial context. The specific issues I have been asked to address include: 1) sources of climate interpretational uncertainty how can this be quantified and represented? 2) strategies for reducing these uncertainties? 3) database / data archiving needs and ideas? The 'white paper' is only intended to be several pages long so specific ideas, concerns etc. along the lines indicated, would be very welcome. I would then try to condense them and draft the text. I must complete this task in the next 2 weeks so brief, initial thoughts and points that you consider must be included would be most welcome. At present Ed Cook ,Rosanne D'Arrigo and Dave Frank are included among the participants ( Congratulations to Jan Esper on the recent arrival of a brace of beautiful girls - provided they take after their mother that is) and I would particularly hope for input from them but I know it is vital to get wider input from others working in this area of dendroclimatology or who have real concerns with the issue of climate change detection and attribution and the use of tree-ring data for model validation or work aimed at quantifying transient climate sensitivity in the real world. Any thoughts, specific text or important PowerPoint slides would be most welcome. With very best wishes and thanks Keith Briffa 15th May 2008 -- Professor Keith Briffa, Climatic Research Unit University of East Anglia Norwich, NR4 7TJ, U.K. Phone: +44-1603-593909 Fax: +44-1603-507784 <[9]http://www.cru.uea.ac.uk/cru/people/briffa/>[10]http://www.cru.uea.ac.uk/cru/people/bri ffa/ -- Dr Jonathan Palmer Gondwana Tree-Ring Laboratory PO Box 14, Little River Canterbury 7546 New Zealand Content-Type: application/pdf; name="NZ Dendro-Archive.pdf" X-Attachment-Id: f_fgvmvgwu0 Content-Disposition: attachment; filename="NZ Dendro-Archive.pdf" -- Professor Keith Briffa, Climatic Research Unit University of East Anglia Norwich, NR4 7TJ, U.K. Phone: +44-1603-593909 Fax: +44-1603-507784 [11]http://www.cru.uea.ac.uk/cru/people/briffa/