From: Phil Jones To: Keith Briffa , "Dr. Reinhard Böhm" , , , ,, ,, Subject: Re: ALPIPMOD-brainstorming Date: Tue, 03 Jul 2001 15:01:17 +0100 Dear All, Here are a few more comments on ALPIPMOD. Ideas are probably not very well ordered. First, you should try for a 3 year project and second, although here for most of the next three months (apart from odd days) I probably couldn't justify a meeting. I am intending on resubmitting another proposal to the October EU round. This one will involve some of the group from ADVICE. It's aim will be to develop a daily MSLP dataset for Europe and the Atlantic (30-70N by 70W-50E). After the dataset is produced in the first year, the second and third year will see various analyses performed and comparisons of several GCM runs performed at the Hadley Centre. This new project will probably go to 2.4.1 which will be a different area from yours which will be 2.1.4. Thus I would hope that your proposal could be developed over email. The above dataset would go back to 1850. This is the period which from the IMPROVE project is just beyond how far we think we can reliably go back with daily data. Several papers from the IMPROVE poject (Moberg et al., 2000 in JGR and several others in press in a special issue of Climatic Change) have come to the about 1870 date. We have much earlier data for the 8 sites but ensuring strict homogeneity of the daily series seems doubtful for some types of extreme measures prior to about 1870. Pressure seems better than temperature. Some sites are better than others. Monthly is fine for all. All the IMPROVE and ADVICE data can be used by the ALPIPMOD project. I have a summer student updating the 51 monthly MSLP sites from ADVICE, amongst other things. As for your ideas, I think you need some overarching theme. The atlas and CD of all the data may be one, but it also needs to address some scientific issues which can be shown to have relevance to the public. I like the idea of making use of the Alpine orography looking at changes in lapse rates and the use of high and low elevation air pressures. The latter is a totally independent method of looking at the warming and can be used back to the late 18th century. The Alps have the longest records of any mountaineous records of any region of the world. Also I am a strong advocate of changes in the influence of features such as the NAO (and other circulation indicators) on surface climate. You can clearly look at these changes over the last 200 years with all the data you have. Another important issue to a lot of climatologists is the relative surface warming compared to the MSU2LT data in the lower troposphere. Although this is hemispheric in extent, we can look with the longer Alpine records as to changes in lower level lapse rates over 200+ years. Related to this tropical ice caps are disappearing at alarming rates in Peru, Tanzania and in Tibet (Lonnie Thompson's work). Lonnie has calculated that the ice cap on Kilimanjaro will not be there by 2015 at its present rate of retreat. Lonnie has some local temperature series for about 40 years which show a small warming yet the ice caps are going fast. Why? These ice caps have all been cored and have ice during the MWP times yet some aren't producing layers now ! My idea is to use the better known histories of the Alpine glaciers to see if they are also melting at accelerated rates than simple temperature averages would imply. Keith mentioned the forward modelling approaches to determine positions in the past (and then relate these to moraine termini). Do these models still function in the last 20 years? Lonnie thinks a lot of the tropical melting is due to sublimation, which isn't accounted for by the degree day models. The elevational sunshine records may be important here and with temperature a particular season may be much more important than the other three. All the above is just ideas, but getting all the data together (instrumental and tree ring as well glacier termini and mass balance) allows us to be able to model the glaciers better than anywhere else. All Europeans will be interested in whether Alpine glaciers are going to disappear and there will be clear impacts on biodiversity at the high elevations and tourism. Another impact area is on the use of glacier meltwater and runoff in hydropower generation. These are all good issues to use in the social and economic pages that need to be written. Cheers Phil At 15:10 29/06/01 +0100, Keith Briffa wrote: Hi everyone I have been through the ideas and offer a few (aptly non organised) comments. First Phil is away and will not be able to comment until later. First, the project needs more explicit focus. The call will focused on natural variability . We are offering a detailed analysis of the variability of climate in the Alpine Region that focuses on CLIVAR timescales - basically very high resolution and not extending much beyond a few centuries. The project incorporates instrumental , model and palaeodata . The inter-relationships between these will be studied to gain an understanding of the nature and mechanisms of the climate variability - but is this enough. I feel it needs to be linked with a strong element of understanding the range of social/economic impacts of this variability. Perhaps looking at aspects such as avalanches, forest damage, floods, tourism etc.? I merely put this out as a straw man . I feel the EC are putting a lot of emphasis on this aspect of research and incorporating research and researchers in these or similar areas will be a big plus. As for the specific points in the brainstorming document - The Dendro aspect : I think it is essential to update the Alpine tree-ring chronologies that are available . This is because they are a proven asset but many questions regarding tree-productivity (in relation to observed 20th century climate variability) simply can not be addressed without doing this. Many were collected over 20 years ago. The additional data would then allow new processing techniques to be employed and vital questions concerning the changing responses of tree-growth to explored. The most efficient way to do this is to involve several groups working in the Alps , (Thank you for sending the Thesis by Giorgio Strumia which is certainly a very impressive piece of work) I would think Rupert Wimmer's group and the Birmensdorf group would be ideal (Fritz Schweingruber has retired but Jan Esper has joined them in his place - I can ask them to be involved but this depends on what the group here think are the priorities and how much we see as the overall budget and institutional allocations). I should say here that I think we would require money for a single person who could , if it is agreed, work on aspects of tree-ring processing and relationships with climate in association with the other tree-ring groups, but also work with the climate and model data , especially with a view to exploring the statistical inter-relationships and dynamical associations between the different climate data sets. There is also the French tree-ring group at Marseille? Perhaps though not all need to partners - ALSO I am thinking of putting together a European Tree-ring project (or suggesting it as part of a large European integrated proxy study of Holocene variability) so if this happened there could be a link between it (involving some of the groups mentioned) and this proposal. The Swiss might be interested to produce selected site tree-ring density/updating which I think would be very valuable and I will speak to them without commitment as you ask. As for some of the climate analysis possibilities mentioned, I very much like the ideas of detailed ,local climate comparisons with the larger CRU (and CRUder!) data. We are very interested in the association between time dependence in the relationships between circulation changes and changes in Temp. and Prec. Also changes in the nature of climate seasonality , and also extreme events (frost frequency , drought, intense rainfall). The detailed analyses of these characteristics also compliments the interpretational work on the tree-ring and glacier mass balance (and socio economic foci) data. As for the glacier work - is not a huge effort already going into this? I think it is important but does it fit as well ? The work proposed would have to be distinguished from other ongoing efforts - though I do like the idea of linking the geomorphological evidence of past glacier change (moraines , pro-glacial sediment data?) with reconstructed glacier volume changes , where the reconstructions are based on new long instrumental data , and palaeodata (temp. and precip.) used to drive a model of the glacier volume. Our German (or Julie) colleagues can point to such work based on GCM output . My colleague here (Sarah Raper) has also done this sort of work but using a very simple model to estimate past Storglaciaren (in Sweden) volume changes and her results imply that these models must be forward driven and not based on simple regression analysis using temperature and precipitation to estimate past mass balance. The future aspects of the discussion are important - and it is true that the previous EC call dealt with modelling and scenarios of future changes. Here, I believe the use of models should be strictly limited to understanding natural /current variability and change. There is no benefit in going for a 2 year project - I strongly urge 3. I also would find a meeting difficult. I am away from 17-29 July, and 11-25 August, and in meetings during 7-10th July and 26-31st August. Phil will be back here next week and will no doubt comment in more detail on the instrumental analysis aspects then. Very best wishes to all Keith At 05:13 PM 6/25/01 +0200, Dr. Reinhard Böhm wrote: Friends, As announced last Friday, we want to open a first round of brainstorming about the contents of our project. We have collected what we have received from You so far and have it mixed with our own ideas (file Brainstorming-1.doc). It does not have a nice structure and there are still a number of question marks, as You will see. Please add things where you think something is missing and please feel free to tell us which points make no sense, or are too ambitious or simply too much work. Please consider also the "how to do it" (state of the art methods, new approaches to solve problems, other data than those mentioned, other topics.....). Please try also to find Your position in the project, tell us what You would prefer to do.... Please try to consider whether we would have to include other groups in terms of scientific potential and/or in terms of data (For example: Keith Briffa you mentioned Fritz Schweingruber as the leading data holder of Alpine tree-ring data. Do you think we should ask him to join us, or could You use his data also without him being a contractor of the project? In case You want him in the project could we kindly ask you to contact him, being much more familiar with him and with the tree-ring topic than we are?) We would be glad to receive a very short answer from everybody within this week, because from June 30th to July 15th all the three of us will not be at the institute. For more detailed considerations and answers You have more time, it would be nice to be able to study them after our return by mid of July. But please use also the possibilities to contact the other groups - the sooner we integrate to a group the better it is. Our time-table for the rest of the time until October: July 16th to August 14th: We are at the institute, hoping to bring the project into a near to final version what concerns the scientific content August 15th to August 28th: Ice core conference at Kangerlussuaq (Greenland) August 29th to September 17th: We are at the institute most of the time. We hope this will be the time to elaborate the EU-shaped complete version. September 18th to September 22nd: Big events going on in Vienna which may cut down our time for the project (150th anniversary of our institute, Climate conference DACH-2001 (in German)) September 24th to October: Time reserved for all the things that could not be done yet in spite of our time table Could each of You please inform us about Your time table during summer and autumn? A question to all of You: How do You think about one 2-days meeting this Summer or in early September? What place do You prefer? If it is Austria we would have two low cost possibilities: 1): at our institute and 2) (more adventurous): At the Sonnblick-observatory (You do not have to have Alpinistic experience, we have a private cable car going up) Some remaining questions: Should we try a 2-years or a 3-years project? Can everybody live with roughly 300.000 Euro (This would result into somewhere between 1.5 and two millions, which we heard is a magnitude preferred by the commission). Please consider not only the sum of money but also how to spend it and how to fill it with a reasonable equivalent in work amount. What is your feeling about the "Climate variability atlas of the Alps"? Is it good to have one main deliverable like that or should we better produce a number of smaller things? One last technical remark: Please send your comments and mails not only to Vienna, but also to the other groups (or at least to those You believe would be interested in what You write). I do not think this would spoil too much our mail boxes and it has the advantage to include the whole intellectual power of our group into the construction phase of the proposal. Looking forward to Your replies, ideas, time tables and anything else With best regards Reinhard -- Dr. Keith Briffa, Climatic Research Unit, University of East Anglia, Norwich, NR4 7TJ, United Kingdom Phone: +44-1603-593909 Fax: +44-1603-507784 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 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------