date: Fri, 15 May 1998 17:13:49 +0100 from: Mike Hulme subject: DDC & Guidelines to: tgcia@meto.gov.uk Dear All, I have some responses to various points raised in the Conference so far. On Monday I wish to raise some more specific issues that remain unresolved in the Guidelines and on the web site. Paul Desanker: the 'CRU climatology' has received no funding from IPCC. It has been developed over a long period of time with many funders. We have a Part I paper coming out in J.Climate and a Part II paper in preparation. We have compared our new fields with Legates/Wilmott and Leemans/Cramer (the two other most widely used to date, but both have problems!). Both Rik and Wolfgang have encouraged us in our work and recognise that our new product is superior to theirs - indeed they are already using our new dataset as are an increasing number of others. We include it not as an IPCC-endorsed product, but as *one* (useful) product among many others. People can of course use what they like. Finer resolution (spatial and temporal) is part of our longer-term research plan but we need funding and data!!! We are working on it. Tell as many people who have influence that there *is* the potential to go down to 10k resolution and daily time-steps, but only if data are forthcoming and funding is in place. Funders seem not to like funding such 'boring' data work - we got turned down by the EU recently. John Mitchell: I think John's point about a quick-look quide to the main pitfalls in scenario use is important. It can be in the Guidelines, but it is also the sort of thing I intend to have on the web site under FAQs. These have not been activated yet, but will do so gradually - and in response to questions from DDC users. This is a dynamic thing. Suggestions welcome. Luis Mata: interesting question about harmonising and/or simplyfing the web site. We have debated how to structure all the material - a 'single route' through or 'multiple-links' between pages. We have gone for the latter. This may be too confusing in the end, although our desire was to allow people to make quick connections between the various components essential for scenario construction. Other comments welcome on this. The CD-ROM will only contain the 30-year aggregates so there will be a degree of uniformity among CD-ROM users rather than web users who can download all monthly data. In the end the data are the same, but what you can do with them differs. Martin Parry: on the question of 'hand-holding examples' for DDC users. This is tricky. The TGCIA, through Tim and the DDC, could certainly provide these, but we then become rather prescriptive and since there are many options and even more opinions on how best to handle all the issues can the TGCIA (and IPCC?) endorse this? I personally would like to be more prescriptive (e.g. on incorporating uncertainties), but this may lead us into trouble. Tim has laid out the options very well. Maybe we could include some 'worked examples' in an Appendix or on the web site and CD-ROM? The role of training is important here, since the 'hand-holding' is best done in this context. About distribution: the Guidelines *must* exist in hardcopy, but we will also attempt to put them on the web. But I intend the CD-ROM (available free for any user) would also contain them, as it will also include (I hope) core datasets and some Tables and graphs. I will raise my own questions on Monday - have a good weekend. Mike