cc: geoff.levermore@umist.ac.uk,j.palutikof@uea.ac.uk
date: Mon, 05 Feb 2001 11:20:45 +0000
from: Phil Jones
subject: Tyndall Project IT1.8
to: m.hulme@uea.ac.uk,n.w.arnell@soton.ac.uk
Dear Mike and Nigel,
Geoff Levermore has just forwarded the letter about this project to the
co-investigators. Your comments on this proposal seem particularly short
sighted.
The large CRU budget of £6000 for travel and subsistence was to help Ben
Brabson
come here (pay his flight and some of his accommodation) so he could work
without
pay (as he gets some money from Indiana). We will now not be able to use
Ben, so
we will not be able to do anywhere near as much work as envisaged. You
would have
got exceptional value, but that will not now be possible.
The second comment is even worse. We are supposed to put more emphasis on
future trends, keeping analysis of observed trends to a minimum. If I was
a reviewer
of any paper coming from this project I would ask what has been happening
in reality
and how well does HadCM3 simulate this. Also UMIST will be looking at solar
radiation and vapour pressure in their simulation models. Can you tell me
how well these
variables are simulated - spatially and temporally ?
If HadCM3 is not great for these variables and it models different
extreme temperature
changes to reality over recent decades, what confidence can we put on the
future ? We
can't just blindly take HadCM3 as a future scenario. We need some
justification.
Cheers
Phil
Prof. Phil Jones
Climatic Research Unit Telephone +44 (0) 1603 592090
School of Environmental Sciences Fax +44 (0) 1603 507784
University of East Anglia
Norwich Email p.jones@uea.ac.uk
NR4 7TJ
UK
----------------------------------------------------------------------------