cc: "Phil Jones" , "Zhang,Xuebin [Ontario]" , "Gabi Hegerl" date: Fri, 31 Aug 2007 08:02:36 -0400 from: "Zwiers,Francis [Ontario]" subject: RE: Extreme indices advice to WGCM to: "Nico Caltabiano" , "David Karoly" Hi all, It would be great if Gabi could carry a message for us - and I think what you propose (that we promise to provide input) is fine. As a zeroth order promise I think we should revisit the indices that were calculated for the AR4 (we would presumably want to revise the list at least a bit). Also, we might want to make some suggestions for what kind of information we would like to collect to enable the analysis of extremes in the far tails of the distribution. We collected 20-year slices of daily data for that purpose last time around - which did turn out to be very useful - but we might want to consider if we should do this differently this time. Asking for daily data is onerous for modelling groups (high volumes of data involved) but allows flexibility in analysis - e.g., affectionadoes of using either annual maxima or peaks-over-threshold approaches can both have at the data, whereas the possibilities are more limited if we ask modellers to archive only, say, monthly or annual extremes. Cheers, Francis Francis Zwiers Director, Climate Research Division, Environment Canada 4905 Dufferin St., Toronto, Ont. M3H 5T4 Phone: 416 739 4767, Fax 416 739 5700 ______________________________________________________________________________________ From: Nico Caltabiano [mailto:caetano@noc.soton.ac.uk] Sent: August 31, 2007 7:51 AM To: David Karoly Cc: Phil Jones; Zhang,Xuebin [Ontario]; Zwiers,Francis [Ontario]; Gabi Hegerl Subject: Extreme indices advice to WGCM Dear David et al. Hope all is well. WGCM is meeting this coming week. I think you won't be attending the meeting but I saw Gabi's name on the list of participants. At the last ETCCDI meeting, we've discussed that we should provide advice to WGCM on indices that should be calculated on a possible effort of model runs to the next IPCC. We surely won't have time to provide a proper input to WGCM now (I apologise for not starting this email exchange earlier). However I think we should send them a message saying that we're startin g this discussions and will feed them during inter-sessions. If they want to propose something in the meantime, I think this would be ok. Perhaps Gabi could take this message to WGCM? Your thoughts on this are welcome. Regards Nico ----------------------------------- Antonio Caetano Caltabiano International CLIVAR Project Office National Oceanography Centre, Southampton Waterfront Campus, European Way Southampton, SO14 3ZH, UK TEL: +44-(0)23-80596207 FAX: +44-(0)23-80596204 SKYPE: nico_caltabiano Climate Variability and Predictability | [1]http://www.clivar.org World Climate Research Programme | [2]http://wcrp.wmo.int This e-mail (and any attachments) is confidential and intended solely for the use of the individual or entity to whom it is addressed. Both NERC and the University of Southampton (who operate NOCS as a collaboration) are subject to the Freedom of Information Act 2000. The information contained in this e-mail and any reply you make may be disclosed unless it is legally exempt from disclosure. Any material supplied to NOCS may be stored in the electronic records management system of either the University or NERC as appropriate.