cc: rbradley@geo.umass.edu, rahmstorf@pik-potsdam.de, jto@u.arizona.edu, Keith Alverson date: Tue Dec 11 15:39:07 2001 from: Keith Briffa subject: Re: PAGES-CLLIVAR WG to: Jean-Claude Duplessy , "Michael E. Mann" At 10:23 AM 12/11/01 +0100, Jean-Claude Duplessy wrote: Dear Jean-Claude and Peck (and the rest of you) Here is hoping you are all battling against life's irritants and soon will find time for a soothing and satisfying Christmas. Perhaps I am biased but I agree that the subject you suggest is a good one - and still not one that has been sufficiently covered ( and certainly not over exposed ). Therefore , I would be happy to collaborate on such a venture. Possible areas of focus include - *trying to penetrate the mist of large regional and complex multivariate transfer functions - and the danger of over calibration *Timescale dependent bias in calibration ( and unrealistic extrapolation) *potential inconsistencies in spatial as opposed to temporal field calibration *realistic ( or not) inference from verification statistics *calculation of (time-scale and time dependent ) reconstruction error *Scaling from regional (and seasonal) reconstructions to hemispheric (annual) series *anthropogenic "compromising" of climate inference With Mike's cleverness and my cynicism , we might make an interesting meeting! best wishes Keith Hi Michael and Keith, I write you as members of the PAGES-CLIVAR WG. You certainly remember that the WG has endorsed to address a small number of IPCC questions. In this context, Peck and I suggest that the PAGES-CLIVAR WG promote the organization of a meeting on the overlap between instrumental and paleo data in order to firmly establish the degree to which paleo data are useful in the context of instrumental observations. This new goal would be a contribution to IPCC objectives and provides a clear answer to skeptics who have often said that proxy data are not reliable (e.g., because some records do not exhibit evidence of recent warming). We hope that you would be able to help in launching this action, because, among the members of the PAGES-CLIVER WG, you have the stronger involvement in this topic. Obviously, we shall ask help of the whole WG and other scientists who had to face concerted actions of skeptics, but your own experience makes your help and your involvement absolutely necessary to the success of this action. At present, everything is open and we would greatly appreciate to have your comments and suggestions. Best regards Jean-Claude Jean-Claude DUPLESSY laboratoire des Sciences du Climat et de l'Environnement Laboratoire mixte CNRS-CEA F - 91198 Gif sur Yvette cedex - tel (33) 01 69 82 35 26 - fax (33) 01 69 82 35 68 - e-mail : Jean-Claude.Duplessy@lsce.cnrs-gif.fr -- Professor Keith Briffa, Climatic Research Unit University of East Anglia Norwich, NR4 7TJ, U.K. Phone: +44-1603-593909 Fax: +44-1603-507784 [1]http://www.cru.uea.ac.uk/cru/people/briffa[2]/