From: Phil Jones <p.jones@uea.ac.uk>
To: Gabi Hegerl <hegerl@duke.edu>, Tom Crowley <tcrowley@duke.edu>, Gabi Hegerl <hegerl@duke.edu>, myles <m.allen1@physics.ox.ac.uk>, Tim Barnett <tbarnett-ul@ucsd.edu>, Nathan Gillett <gillett@ocean.seos.uvic.ca>, "Stott, Peter" <peter.stott@metoffice.com>, David Karoly <dkaroly@rossby.metr.ou.edu>, Reiner Schnur <schnur@dkrz.de>, Karl Taylor <taylor13@llnl.gov>, francis <francis.zwiers@ec.gc.ca>
Subject: Future Directions
Date: Tue Mar  1 08:40:42 2005

   Dear All,
         I've knocked Chris off this reply. There is a meeting of the CCDD program next week
    in Asheville. I guess Chris wants something for this. I'm on the panel, so if you want to
   add to
    what Gabi and Tom have put together then let me know and I'll feed that in additionally to
    what is already there.
         From being at the review last week of the vertical temperature trends panel, the
   issue of
    reducing forcing uncertainties is important. A number of people think that agreement in
   the
    20th century is all doing to model tuning due to uncertain forcing with sulphates. How to
    counter this is one area. One of my own pet areas is trying to reduce uncertainties in the
    paleo record for the last millennium, but again this is one of convincing people that we
   really
    know what has happened. So much is being made of the paleo records, but are they that
    important to detection when most of the work is going on with the 20th century records. Is
   the
    pre-20th century really that important when it comes to D&A?
    Cheers
    Phil
   At 20:45 28/02/2005, Gabi Hegerl wrote:

     Hi IDAG people,
     Chris Miller needs some input on where detection is going and what should be funded,
     appended is a list Tom and I sent him as rapid response, but it sounds like they are
     still
     in the process of thinking about
     this, so please reply (soon) if you have additions/comments (Chris, only thought of
     sending
     this now, I hope results will be still helpful)
     Gabi

     1) extending detection to other fields, esp. U.S.  possible variables are circulation,
     anything hydrological (drought, average rainfall), climate extremes, storms,
     all this is getting more feasible as observational data get better, reanalyses get more
     reliable (although trend sstill questionable), and models get better and have higher
     resolution
     2) compiling  "showable" scorecard of what has been detected in the system already
     3) abrupt changes - Tom thinks the relevance has been overstated of past changes in the
     thermohaline circulation (because of proximity of massive amounts of ice/freshwater).
     However, I think it would still be useful to
     find a fingerprint of predictors for thermohaline shutdown (from waterhosing
     experiments), and establish
     how early warning signs can be detected.
     Another aprupt change that could be dealt with are events such as the mega drought
     cycles in the western U.S., which our preliminary work indicates does not correspond
     with multidecal peaks in warmth for zonal average temperatures.
     4) using paleoclimate data for understanding regional responses to known forcings, such
     as pulse of volcanism in early 19th century.  tests of a model's predictability on
     regional scales.  this however would require ensemble runs and a fair amount of legwork,
     so probably would be best as a proposal than as an IDAG project.
     5) more surface temperature detection as already donw, to keep analyzing 20th century
     from models as model
     diagnostic and evaluating how to get most model performance information out of this
     diagnostic. For this,
     updates of forcing estimates, particularly reduced sulfate aerosol uncertainties would
     be useful.

     -------- Original Message --------
     Subject:        Re: Directions in D&A
     Date:   Tue, 22 Feb 2005 10:51:56 -0500
     From:   Chris Miller <christopher.d.miller@noaa.gov>
     Reply-To:       christopher.d.miller@noaa.gov
     Organization:   NOAA
     To:     Gabi Hegerl <hegerl@duke.edu>
     References:     <4216317A.7020700@noaa.gov> <421A4F67.1040201@duke.edu>
     Gabi, I'm looking for some quick thoughts, which probably means just you and Tom.
     Obviously, the rest of IDAG would have ideas but it would take some time to poll them (I
     could see it as an agenda item at the IDAG meeting). If you had a couple highlight items
     by Thursday morning, that would be helpful as I have an internal meeting where this will
     be discussed.
     Thanks again, Chris
     Gabi Hegerl wrote:

     Chris, by when do you need this? From the whole IDAG or just, eg from me
     and Tom?
     Gabi
     Chris Miller wrote:

     Tom, Gabi, As you are probably aware, one of the recurring challenges for federal
     program managers is to indicate to upper management what the science priorities in the
     future should be. NOAA is more future-looking than it has been in the past and we are
     now being called upon more frequently to respond to this question. A simplistic answer
     would be "more of the same" since we are doing such good work now. This could be part of
     the answer, but not the whole answer. NOAA is interested in new science thrusts, new
     observational programs or analyses, new institutional arrangements, etc. (the "new is
     better syndrome"). I would appreciate it if you could take a few minutes to think about
     this issue and send me a few bullets on where you think the community should be going on
     D&A, for both continuing and new investments (from the perspective of the work that IDAG
     has been involved in to date).
     Thanks for your help and look forward to the next IDAG mtg.
     Chris


     -- ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
     Gabriele Hegerl Division of Earth and Ocean Sciences, Nicholas School for the
     Environment and Earth Sciences,
     Box 90227
     Duke University, Durham NC 27708
     Ph: 919 684 6167, fax 684 5833
     email: hegerl@duke.edu, [1]http://www.env.duke.edu/faculty/bios/hegerl.html

     -- ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
     Gabriele Hegerl Division of Earth and Ocean Sciences, Nicholas School for the
     Environment and Earth Sciences,
     Box 90227
     Duke University, Durham NC 27708
     Ph: 919 684 6167, fax 684 5833
     email: hegerl@duke.edu, [2]http://www.env.duke.edu/faculty/bios/hegerl.html

     --
     ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
     Gabriele Hegerl Division of Earth and Ocean Sciences, Nicholas School for the
     Environment and Earth Sciences,
     Box 90227
     Duke University, Durham NC 27708
     Ph: 919 684 6167, fax 684 5833
     email: hegerl@duke.edu, [3]http://www.env.duke.edu/faculty/bios/hegerl.html

   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
   ----------------------------------------------------------------------------

References

   1. http://www.env.duke.edu/faculty/bios/hegerl.html
   2. http://www.env.duke.edu/faculty/bios/hegerl.html
   3. http://www.env.duke.edu/faculty/bios/hegerl.html

