cc: Scott D Woodruff , Phil Jones , Adrian Simmons date: Mon, 25 Jun 2007 15:27:58 +0100 from: rob.allan@metoffice.gov.uk subject: [Fwd: Re: Enquiry about possible funding for GCOS AOPC/OOPC to: Gil Compo , Gil Compo Gil, What do you think? I'll give you a ring to talk about this today, but my initial thought is to see if we can do something in Europe with reinsurance monies later this year, and if Howard can come up with anything then something in the US next year? Given my Australian funding for the ACRE Project Manager's role I'll have to visit Australia sometime in the first half of next year, and would try to see if we can organise something similar whilst there. Cheers, Rob. -- Dr Rob Allan ACRE Project Manager From: howard diamond Subject: Re: Enquiry about possible funding for GCOS AOPC/OOPC Surface Pressure Working Group meeting In-reply-to: <1182768925.20010.66.camel@eld449.desktop.frd.metoffice.com> To: rob.allan@metoffice.gov.uk Message-id: <467FCE3F.60501@noaa.gov> Organization: National Climatic Data Center Hello Rob, Thanks for that; yes, that kind of meeting support at $60K is a bit pricey, however, just holding it in Ireland does not significantly lower the costs as it assumes that the travel costs for every participant is fully paid for; many people from agencies in developed nations (myself included) usually factor in some travel into their budgets and self fund themselves. From the list of members; affiliations on the SPWG it looks like all members come from developed nations and consists of people who I know attend other international meetings. I find it a bit hard to believe that these folks could not fund at least a portion of the travel associated with such a meeting. Certainly holding it in Ireland would be fine, but we would have to find some organization I could send the funds to who would be willing to administer it, that might wind up being a place like UCAR in Boulder, although they do charge somewhat of a tax to do that, but it is not too unreasonable. Perhaps the Irish Marine Data Center, Proudman Oceanographic Lab, Hadley Centre, or even ECMWF might agree to aid with the administration of such a meeting. Anyway, I had originally estimated my support to be in the $10-15K range to take care of a meeting venue, etc. As I indicated earlier, I do not believe the travel costs to Ireland would be much less except for perhaps the folks from the UK, but perhaps that would take $60K down to $40K, but I am not sure. It seems that if this activity is important enough that people should first be asked whether they can budget for some travel for a meeting, and then see where we go from there. I would consider making that contribution higher only after people had indicated whether they could self-fund any portion of their travel first. At this time it does not look like I will have any end-of-fiscal year money; our current fiscal year ends on 30/9/2007. As for what my budget holds for my next fiscal year, I am not sure, and there is much uncertainty with that. Just to give you an example of how problematic our budget process is, while our current fiscal year (2007) began on 1-October-2006, I did not receive any fiscal year 2007 funding until the middle of April (and this was universal not only across NOAA, but was the case for most domestic agencies). Should things change this year (and things are so contentious in our political system, that I am not sure it will change much) I still do not anticipate having much access to any funds until at least February 2008 (and that is somewhat optimistic). So that does not make your planning any easier, and for that I apologize. The bottom line is that I first believe that SPWG members should be polled on their ability to self-fund attendance at such a meeting, and then after that, I might consider going up as high as $25K or so, but again, I am not the only funding person around and my resources, like most others, are always stressed. So if we can stay flexible, I will help where I can, but think that we should approach this from both ends so that we come to a good middle ground that matches resources I can provide with resources from individuals' organizations. Hope those thoughts help a bit. Regards. Howard [1]rob.allan@metoffice.gov.uk wrote: On Wed, 2007-06-06 at 10:59 -0400, Howard Diamond wrote: Hello Rob, Well that is always possible; at this point I have no funds as I have just finished executing the limited GCOS budget that I received this fiscal year. However, that said, there is a possibility for end of fiscal year funding (in Aug or Sep of this year) that is always a possibility, and there are at times other funds that I am able to get my hands on via my home office at NCDC. So while I am not making any firm promises, I am open to it and just have a couple of questions. First, do you have a cost estimate for the SPWG meeting you have in mind in Bermuda; second, what is the timeframe you are looking at; third, who would be administering the funds, in other words who would I work with to send funds to (e.g.., BIOS) and who specifically would be involved as I would have to coordinate the mechanical transfer; and last, could I attend such a meeting if possible. Hope that helps a bit; again, most importantly if I had a feel for the scale of funding involved, that would help me in seeing where I might be able to find these in from either an extra-GCOS budgetary source for this year, or in planning for my GCOS budget next year. Regards. Howard [2]rob.allan@metoffice.gov.uk wrote: Dear Howard, Along with Gil Compo from NOAA ESRL/CIRES CDC, I co-convene the GCOS AOPC/OOPC Surface Pressure Working Group (SPWG) ([3]http://www.cdc.noaa.gov/Pressure/). As you may know, and is documented on our SPWG WWW site above, despite having basically no funding and a brief to generally communicate with our members via e-mail, we have successfully had international SPWG meetings linked to other conferences such as CLIMAR and MARCDAT. However, we have recently been looking at ways to hold more independent meetings. Thus, at the last SPWG meeting at the Met Office in 2005 ([4]http://www.cdc.noaa.gov/Pressure/Minutes/index.html), we aimed to try and obtain sufficient funds to hold an SPWG meeting in its own right. I made some tentative enquiries with the Bermuda Institute of Ocean Sciences (BIOS) ([5]http://www.bbsr.edu/) about holding a meeting at that institution towards the end of this year, with a focus on North Atlantic-European storminess from historical surface pressure data sets. We chose BIOS, because of their close links to the reinsurance industry and their interest in storminess. The Director of BIOS, Tony Knap, was happy for us to meet at BIOS if we could find funds to support such a meeting. I have since tried to see if any reinsurance companies might be interested in funding such a meeting, but have had no success. Most recently my own situation has changed, in that I've secured the bulk of funding from the Queensland Climate Change Centre of Excellence (QCCCE) in Australia for a new 3 year position here at the Hadley Centre as the Project Manager of an initiative called ACRE (Atmospheric Circulation Reconstructions over the Earth). I've been able to do this by bringing together various international projects and linking infrastructure through my SPWG co-convening role (see the attached ppt file). So as of July 1st, I'll officially be the ACRE Project Manager (see attached document for an overview) with a prime role of supporting and facilitating the global daily to sub-daily surface pressure data requirements for historical surface observations only reanalyses (the 20th Century Reanalysis Project) that Gil Compo is leading. Over the next few years, we aim to build on the expertise developed by the 20th Century Reanalysis Project to provide the basis for historical surface observations-based reanalyses which have sufficient data coverage to be valid globally back to the mid-19th century and specifically over the North Atlantic-European region from the late to mid-18th century to the present. Given these new circumstances with ACRE, Gil and I were wondering if there would be a possibility of any funding coming from your offices/GCOS to hold a SPWG meeting on the ACRE initiative and the historical reanalyses that it will support, including the vast data requirements? Gil and I have discussed this amongst ourselves, and with Adrian Simmons at ECMWF, especially given the formation of the new Working Group on Observational Datasets for Reanalysis that Russ Vose will be leading. Any thoughts or suggestions on funding an SPWG meeting as described would be much appreciated. Regards, Rob Allan. Howard, Further to my earlier enquiry, I've attached below this e-mail an evaluation that Scott Woodruff did of an SPWG meeting in Bermuda. As you'll see, it is all rather expensive. So I've reassessed things and had some further thoughts, given Scott's calculations, and am looking at a different possibility. I've spoken to Adrian Simmons as AOPC Chair about this and he is very supportive of the concept. My current thoughts revolve around the idea of bringing together the GCOS AOPC/OOPC Working Groups on pressure (SPWG), SST and sea-ice, and atmospheric reference observations, with climate applications and reinsurance people, to focus on both various reanalysis data needs and on potential climate applications and impacts usage of a variety of reanalyses (ERA, NCEP, Gil's 20th Century Reanalysis Project etc) and reanalysis products. I think strategically it might provide a very useful focus all round which will promote the need for more data, clarify the current and potential situation with the various reanalysis efforts and their needs, and give the climate applications community a better idea of what the data and reanalysis products can be best used for. One issue that I wondered about, was would it be a problem with the possible monies we'd be looking for if the meeting was held in Europe? I'm actually thinking of Ireland, which may help US people flying this way. I'd be most interested in any thoughts you might have. Cheers, Rob. Gil and Rob, Sorry about the delay in responding on this. Following are some numbers that might help with estimating more precisely total costs: a) Using for example 16-23 September, airfare from Denver to Bermuda priced out today at about $600 on Orbitz. Whereas, unrestricted government fare for the same dates: $1209. b) Current US Government per diem for Bermuda during that period (April-November is high season): $373 (lodging) + $170 (meals and incidental expenses) = $543/day total (for comparison, total per diem during the balance of the calendar year drops to $454/day). c) A travel contractor (e.g., Carlson Wagonlit for US Feds., or CIRES, or UK?) could probably do a person-by-person airfare calculation (based on where each participant needs to travel from). But for simplicity here is a gross estimate for each person attending (since clearly airfares may vary considerably): $1200 airfare (which US Feds. anyway are strongly encouraged to use). + $543 * 6.5 days = $3529 (too many days?). + miscellaneous expenses & surface travel costs (cabs, buses, etc.) = $300. Total: ~$5K/person. d) How many people would you plan to support? Let's say a dozen (according to the SPWG website, there are presently 9 members). 12 x $5K = $60K. e) Plus there might be local organizational costs (rental of a meeting space, if applicable; coffee/tea; workshop dinner; etc.): $5K? Bermuda looks fairly pricey! Hope this fairly crude information is helpful for the discussion. Of course, these gross numbers could be cut down some by assuming non-refundable airfares and a shorter meeting. Cheers, -Scott PS: For your information, I'm unavailable (on vacation) 1-19 October, if a meeting ends up being considered around then. -- EFFECTIVE APRIL 2, 2007; PLEASE NOTE NEW CONTACT DETAILS Howard J. Diamond, U.S. Global Climate Observing System Program Manager [[6]http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/oa/usgcos/index.ht m] Director, World Data Center for Meteorology, Asheville [[7]http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/oa/wmo/wdcamet.h tml] NOAA/National Climatic Data Center 1315 East-West Highway, Room 12734 Silver Spring MD 20910-3283 Phone: +1-301-734-1229 Fax: +1-301-713-0517 Cell: +1-301-801-4855 e-mail: [8]howard.diamond@noaa.gov