From: Keith Briffa <k.briffa@uea.ac.uk>
To: t.osborn@uea.ac.uk
Subject: [Fwd: Rapid Climate Change]
Date: Fri Sep 28 12:51:28 2001

     Date: Thu, 27 Sep 2001 11:32:30 +0100
     From: Simon Tett <simon.tett@metoffice.com>
     Subject: [Fwd: Rapid Climate Change]
     Sender: simon.tett@metoffice.com
     To: k.briffa@uea.ac.uk, sandy.tudhope@ed.ac.uk
     X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.75 [en] (X11; U; HP-UX B.11.00 9000/782)
     X-Accept-Language: en
     Dear Keith/Sandy,
             please don't pass on or discuss further -- this is the email I got from
     Phil Newton. So with some reluncance I get to put up a strawman. I will
     go with what we discussed in London but some nice graphics (or any
     thoughts) would be helpful -- do you have any you can send me.
     Simon
     Date: Fri, 21 Sep 2001 16:02:14 +0100
     From: Philip Newton <ppn@nerc.ac.uk>
     Subject: Rapid Climate Change
     To: sfbtett@email, a.j.watson@uea.ac.uk
     Cc: Meric Srokosz <MAS@soc.soton.ac.uk>,
      Catrin Yeomans <CVY.DST.Swindon@wpo.nerc.ac.uk>,
      Judy Parker <JMP.DST.Swindon@wpo.nerc.ac.uk>,
      Nigel Collins <NRC.DST.Swindon@wpo.nerc.ac.uk>,
      Neville Hollingworth <NTH.DST.Swindon@wpo.nerc.ac.uk>
     Message-id: <md5:867B0102E7BAE34BCAE86F2E32B8167E>
     MIME-version: 1.0
     Content-type: multipart/mixed; boundary="Boundary_(ID_5Sy4P7Icy2zVEqcBr4S8jA)"
     Dear Simon, Andy,
     Many thanks for agreeing to each give an informal presentation to the Steering Committee
     on the first afternoon of the meeting.
     As I mentioned on the phone, what I'm after is for each of you to look at the Abrupt
     proposal and Prescient proposal/draft-science plan (attached as WORD documents), stand
     well back, and put forward some ideas for how one might combine them into a single
     coherent programme.  The intention is to lay the foundation for some discussion, both
     Monday afternoon and evening, in advance of the formal Steering Committee meeting item
     that will deal with developing a single science plan. All SC members will have the
     attached documents in their papers.
     I'll summarise the few constraints we have at the start of the Monday session, so you
     won't have to revisit the history; by the time we get to you, all will know that we have
     the task of coming up with a single plan, and the events leading up to that
     circumstance.
     The constraints as I see them are:
     The Rapid Climate Change programme has  a budget of £20m. The Abrupt proposal was
     written to £16.9m, and the STB decided to invest £17.0m in thermohaline-related rapid
     climate change. This proposal contained both palaeo and modelling components (as well as
     modern observational/process work), and a strong complementarity and close working
     relationship with Prescient was always envisaged by the writers. The Prescient proposal
     was written to £8m, and the Prescient draft science plan (following reduced award) was
     written to £4.5m. The STB did not have a discussion about how the science of the two
     programmes should be combined, but the nature and chronology of events/discussions imply
     that the STB decision to spend £17m on thermohaline-related work should be respected. I
     do not see that this has to be translated as an inexorable shackling of the £4.5m
     Prescient science aims, given that a good fraction of the Prescient draft science plan
     seems to be potentially relevant to thermohaline-related climate change, and that there
     is notionally £3m of the £20m that is not tied to thermohaline-related work, and there
     is a strong palaeo/modelling element to Abrupt.
     So much for constraints. I do not want to give the impression that we are after a
     ring-fencing of Prescient and Abrupt monies and aims within Rapid.  I would hope that
     there is scope for a much more integrated (in the sense of both palaeo/modern and
     obs/model) and coherent programme than that. One potential conflict, in the modelling
     context, seems to be the apparently regional approach of Abrupt cf the global approach
     of Prescient. I suspect (but may be wrong) that there is a scientific debate to be had
     as to whether an Atlantic-centric approach is sufficient to consider
     thermohaline-related climate change over NW Europe, or whether a more global treatment
     is required.
     On practicalities, I've got you down for 20 minutes each, and have set aside half an
     hour for discussion straight afterwards. Please let Catrin Yeomans (cvy@nerc.ac.uk)
     know your audio-visual needs.
     Get back to me if you need further clarification.
     All the best,
     Phil
     Dr Philip Newton
     Head of Marine Sciences Team
     Science Programmes Directorate
     Natural Environment Research Council
     Polaris House
     North Star Avenue
     Swindon
     SN2 1EU, UK.
     Tel: +44 (0) 1793 411636
     Fax: +44 (0) 1793 411545
     E-mail: ppn@nerc.ac.uk

   --
   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]/

References

   1. http://www.cru.uea.ac.uk/cru/people/briffa/
   2. http://www.cru.uea.ac.uk/cru/people/briffa/

