cc: "Keith Briffa" , "Philip Brohan" , "Rob Allan" , t.osborn@uea.ac.uk date: Thu Oct 16 14:03:19 2008 from: Phil Jones subject: Re: Possible NERC Consortium bid to: K.Briffa@uea.ac.uk, "Chris Turney" Chris, You seem to have thought of all the useful groups looking at high-resolution proxies for the last 500 years in the UK - so Edinburgh/St Andrews and UEA, as well as some US groups. The other international groups would be AIMS in Townsville (Janice Lough) and maybe Kim Cobb (tropical corals). The ship logbook work is likely to yield detail for the Atlantic and Indian Oceans. I'm also involved in an EU project looking at the La Plata Basin in South America. Most of this is about instrumental and modelling data, but there is a small paleo component in the project. I've no idea what this will produce, but I was keen to limit this to high-freq proxies from the recent past. Summer 2009 seems a long way off, but need to plan fairly soon. To get anything to feed into IPCC AR5 (due for 2013) you'd need to be thinking of submission by end of 2011, so with a July 09 submission and a start almost a year later, we'd be lucky to get anything major into AR5. Positive yes from me as well. Cheers Phil At 13:29 16/10/2008, K.Briffa@uea.ac.uk wrote: Chris the immediate answer is that we would certainly like to join this initiative. In fact we were talking here of the way to push a similar idea. Following a NERC meeting in London some months ago , we have been thinking about developing the idea of extended instrumental/palaeo data sets to explore the extent to which future changes (through an improved estimation of effective climate sensitivity and the objective exclusion of specific climate model simulations by comparison with the extended data sets) might be better constrained. Rowan Sutton made it clear that this approach was the only one he (in his new role of NERC "Climate" chief)would consider worth proposing as the basis of a possible consortium bid. At this meeting I had preliminary discussions with Sandy Tudhope and we envisaged possibly doing something like this in collaboration with the new, expanding Edinburgh group - though since then, Simon Tett and Gabbi Hegerl have acquired some funding to do new HadCM3 simulations looking at the sensitivity to specific volcanic forcing estimates - funded by UGAMP or some such. We can discuss details as you wish later, but for now our initial response is a very definite yes and I would expect to have Tim Osborn involved along with Phil and I in any project we devise. As for time frame - I am in no doubt that The summer 2009 suggestion is the optimum one - and we would find it hard to contribute much in terms of practical input if we went for the earlier approach. very best wishes Keith > Dear Keith and Phil, > > I don't know whether you remember but some time ago I contacted you > regarding a NERC Consortium bid looking at past climates over the past > millennium. I was wondering whether you might still be interested? > I'm sorry for the delay in getting back in contact; since arriving at > Exeter I've been hit sideways with admin and am only now getting my > head above water. > > I've been in discussion with Rob Allan and Phil Brohan at the Met > Office and Peter Cox here at Exeter. We're keen to pursue a similar > approach to the one I outlined to you last year though with a twist. > Essentially, Rob and Phil, through ACRE, have been assembling a large > number of new historical climate observations, going back back to > around 1780; and are collaborating with a NOAA project (led by Gil > Compo) to produce a climate reanalysis covering the last 100 years. > This data will go into the usual international terrestrial and marine > databanks (ICOADS, ISPD etc) and thus provide the 'fuel' for the > historical surface-input reanalyses that Gil is doing, linked to > ACRE's activities. The first full version of the 20th Century > Reanalysis Project (1892-present) will be released into the public > domain early next year. Future planned historical surface-input > reanalyses are the global Surface Input Reanalysis for Climate > Applications (SIRCA) (1840s-2011) and an even longer global effort > that will be most reliable over the North Atlantic-European Region > from the mid 18th-early 19th Century to present. > > The scheme we're plotting is to fuse together instrumental > observations, non-instrumental observations and proxies, for modelling > of Earth climate system. The proxies will let us check the new > observations for biases, the observations will let us check the > proxies' response to climate is stable over long periods, and the long > reanalysis will let us investigate the stability of teleconnections > and reduce the uncertainty of past reconstructions. Rather than focus > on just the southern hemisphere as I originally suggested, the > proposal would take a global perspective, but keep the timeframe to > the last 500 years; we're now developing good proxy and historical > records for the southern hemisphere over this period, thereby allowing > us to directly compare north and south. The aims would be to better > model the climate system (and carbon-feedbacks) and feed our better > understanding into the Met Office model. Ideally, we'd like to > generate results that could feed into the next IPCC report. > > The sort of project outlined above would be far too large for a > standard grant. As a result, we'd need to go for a Consortium > grant. As part of a bid we'd be looking to have 2 other UK > institutions involved plus some international collaborators. Would > you be interested in getting involved? It would be great to have you > on board. We'd also be looking to work up the coral datasets and are > approaching Rob Wilson at St Andrews. With this team, we'd be able > to weave a fantastic array of historical, tree ring and coral records > into the bid. > > Following on from the above, you're probably aware of the Tett et al. > paper "The impact of natural and anthropogenic forcings on climate > and hydrology since 1550" published in Climate Dynamics last year; in > it they suggest the earliest > anthropogenic signal of climate change should be detected in the > tropics. A further aim could be to undertake a formal detection > study. We're approaching Ed Cook and Rosanne D'Arrigo to explore > whether they'd be interested in collaborating as Project Partners, > feeding in their fabulous Asian monsoonal records (funded by the NSF); > this would help complement the coral work and extend the tropical > datasets inland. There are several other international collaborators > we are also considering approaching but would welcome any suggestions > you might have. > > If you're interested, we have two choices of deadline: the 1 December > and 1 July (2009). I'm hesitant to go for the former given the > timescale but would be keen to give it a go if you were enthusiastic. > What do you think? > > All the best, > > Chris > **************************************************** > Professor Chris Turney > > Author of Ice, Mud and Blood: Lessons from Climates Past > Popular science website: > [1]www.christurney.com > Journal of Quaternary Science Asian and Australasian Regional Editor > > School of Geography, Archaeology and Earth Resources > The University of Exeter > Exeter > Devon > EX4 4RJ > UK > > Times Higher University of the Year 2007-08 > > Home page: > [2]www.sogaer.ex.ac.uk/geography/people/staff/c_turney/main.shtml > E-mail: c.turney@exeter.ac.uk > Office Tel.: +44 (0)1392 263331 > Fax.: +44 (0)1392 263342 > > **************************************************** > > Slartibartfast: Science has achieved some wonderful things of course, > but I'd far rather be happy than right any day > Arthur Dent: And are you? > Slartibartfast: No. Thats where it all falls down of course. > Arthur Dent: Pity. It sounded like quite a good lifestyle otherwise. > > The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy, Douglas Adams > > **************************************************** > > > > > > > > > > > Prof. Phil Jones Climatic Research Unit Telephone +44 (0) 1603 592090 School of Environmental Sciences Fax +44 (0) 1603 507784 University of East Anglia Norwich Email p.jones@uea.ac.uk NR4 7TJ UK ----------------------------------------------------------------------------