From: Phil Jones <p.jones@uea.ac.uk>
To: Keith Briffa <k.briffa@uea.ac.uk>, "Dr. Reinhard Böhm" <r.boehm@zamg.ac.at>, <maugeri@mailserver.unimi.it>, <t.nanni@isao.bo.cnr.it>, <m.brunetti@isao. bo.cnr.it>,<Dietmar. Wagenbach@iup. uni-heidelberg.de>, <jones@gkss.de>,<widmann@gkss.de>, <storch@gkss.de>
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
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