date: Tue, 03 Feb 1998 12:00:35 +0000 from: Mike Hulme subject: DETR meeting minutes and date to: Peter@westwind.demon.co.uk,j.kings@bham.ac.uk,ckfolland@meto.govt.uk, deparker@meto.govt.uk,Tracy Basnett , p.jones@uea.ac.uk,j.jones@uea.ac.uk,t.osborn@uea.ac.uk,m.new@uea.ac.uk Dear All, A few slight amendments to the minutes were made so here is the final version. In response to comments on July dates, I have gone for 16th July as the meeting date in Bracknell (with 2nd July as a back-up in case of problems with the 16th). Perhaps you could put these dates in your diaries now. Thanks, Mike ___________________________________________________________ Joint Hadley Centre/Westwind Services/Climatic Research Unit Progress and Planning Meeting University of East Anglia Thursday 22 January 1998, 11.45am to 4.30pm Attending: Chris Folland, David Parker, Tracy Basnett (Hadley Centre) Peter Wright, John Kings (Westwind Services) Mike Hulme, Phil Jones, Tim Osborn, Julie Jones, Declan Conway and Mark New (part-time) (CRU) Minutes (corrected 3/2/98) 1. Review of Actions from July meeting a. Jenkinson pressure indices: these have been calculated from 1881 and are updated each month by Tracy Basnett, being available through ftp. This Jenkinson index should be widely publicised as a replacement to Lamb. b. Regional precip. series: owing to staffing changes at the Hadley Centre there will be several months delay before the new monthly EWP can be calculated in near real-time. In the interim, the Met. Office EWR could be used by CRU to obtain a rough estimate of EWP. Updating the 1931-83 regional daily precip. series requires appropriate data from the BADC. c. Daily precipitation intensities: a compilation of hourly data from the IH exists, some of which may be useful for investigations into changes in convective/frontal precip. Additional sources of relevant hourly data maybe found through Eddie Spackman at the Met. Office or the hourly/3-hourly SYNOP reports at BADC. Some prior analysis of changing daily UK precip. intensities may be worthwhile using the data CRU already have. d. A complete global Tmean gridded 1961-90 climatology: this exercise will require the blending of CRU's land climatology, with marine air temperatures calculated by adding (night) air-sea temperature differences to GISST2.2 climatology, and the COADS Arctic Ocean climatology. CRU first need to complete their analysis by generating a Tmean (Tmin and Tmax) surface for Antarctica and surrounding sea ice regions. The objective is to calculate a more accurate estimate of 'true' global surface mean temperature. 2. Hadley Centre update. Chris Folland summarised the recently completed ensemble experiments using HADAM2b for 1871-1997. Runs using GISST3, but no natural or anthropogenic forcing, will be used by Westwind in their trend analysis. Over the next few months, sets of ensemble experiments will be run using HADAM3 with a) GISST3 forcing and b) GISST3 forcing combined with an array of additional natural and anthropogenic forcings (volcanic, solar, GHG, aerosol, etc.). These HADAM3 results will also be used by Westwind before the completion of their current work in March 1999. 3. Westwind update. A summary of recently completed work was presented. Differences between the Lamb and Jenkinson derived PCSM trends were noted. Relationships between CET (from 1921) Tmin and Tmax and discrete wind directions for successive 15-year slices were analysed. Additional work will be completed along these lines using CET Tmin/Tmax back to 1890 and using shorter averaging periods (e.g. 5-years), before work commences on analysing HADAM2b runs. 4. CRU update. Two aspects of work were presented. a. An intercomparison of about 10 near-global precip. climatologies has recently commenced. This will enable uncertainties in 'true' global precip. trends and patterns to be quantified. Comparison with NWP re-analysis products may yet be premature. This work has also included a new assessment of the biases introduced into OLR-derived precip. estimates because of changing equator crossing times. b. Work comparing airflow/weather relationships over the UK in observations and in the HADCM2 control simulation has continued. This has used Jenkinson-type indices to evaluate GCM performance. This work will be written up in the next few weeks. 5. Monthly CLIMAT screening. Staffing changes at the Hadley Centre have created some pressures on continuing with full CLIMAT QC. It was recognised as essential, however, that this QC work be maintained. Some rationalisation could be achieved by excluding T stations not used by CRU. Also, possible co-ordination of QC work with Germany and Japan might be possible in the future. This will get looked at again by the soon to be appointed Hadley Centre data manager. 6. DETR funding and priorities. In the absence of DETR, this item was postponed. Minutes of this meeting will form the basis of a follow-up meeting between CRU and DETR. 7. Request from 'Weather' for monthly climate data. Roger Brugge's request was discussed. Quarterly reports in Weather were felt to be most appropriate. These could include CET and global and hemispheric temperatures, but EWP would need to wait until later in 1998. The exact timing of availability for 'Weather' needs to be resolved. The Hadley Centre may be placing some of these data on their web site. Actions (excluding bilateral arrangements between Hadley and Westwind) 1. The Jenkinson index to be publicised as the 'official' replacement for Lamb. 2. Met. Office to supply 1961-1997 EWR to CRU as an interim solution to the EWP update. 3. Hadley Centre to initiate production of EWP as soon as feasible over the next months and certainly by the autumn. This task has in fact now (23/1/98) agreed to be done by the technical department of the services and business division of the Met. Office and Briony will transfer Phil's software to them. 4. CRU to approach BADC for daily precip. updates (post-1983) for the UK regional precip. series. Also to enquire about daily SYNOP data. 5. Hadley Centre to send GISST CD-ROM to CRU for use in creating Tmean global climatology. 6. CRU to explore changing daily P intensities in the UK and to evaluate opportunity/desirability of using hourly series for such investigation. 7. David Parker and Phil Jones to decide on availability schedule of global temperature data for 'Weather'. Mike Hulme to reply to Roger Brugge. 8. Phil Jones to supply Hadley Centre with a list of redundant T stations in CLIMAT messages. 9. Tim Osborn to supply Hadley Centre and Westwind with a set of summary diagrams re. validation work on HADCM2 (for internal use only). The next progress meeting will be held in Bracknell on Thursday 16th July (with Thursday 2nd July as a back-up date).