From: Wolfgang Cramer <cramer@nis.pik-potsdam.de>
To: Mike Hulme <m.hulme@uea.ac.uk>, VXT_COPR@luecology.ecol.lu.se (I. Colin Prentice)
Subject: Re: EU proposals
Date: Fri, 22 Nov 1996 15:51:36 +0100

Hm, clearly coordination between the two (if it really ends up as two) 
groups is absolutely essential, otherwise we would look entirely 
stupid. The first thing that comes to my mind is that nitrogen would be 
emphasizing a component of our overall idea which otherwise would not 
receive great attention - hence it could be, perhaps, amalgamated. They 
probably see it the other way around: In their problem, climatic 
variability comes second in importance. My view on this is that all of 
our model intercomparisons have shown that models essentially do crazy 
things with interannual variability, simply because nobody ever has 
tested them for that in any detail. Esser's model would probably be the 
last candidate to use here, since it is "less mechanistic" than any of 
the others - in fact, Colin and I seemed to agree to "not necessarily" 
include it into this proposal. These are just some thoughts for the 
moment.

I just finished a very first, rough draft of our outline, and I attach 
it to the end of this message. I have just sent it to Martin Heimann, 
but I have still not yet talked to him. I also send this whole thing to 
Colin, hoping that he will catch the thread through it without 
problems. Gerard Dedieu is the one I want to approach next - Alberte is 
already talking to him about this in the context with other things.

Cheers,

Wolfgang

On Nov 22, 14:12, Mike Hulme wrote:
> Subject: EU proposals
> Wolfgang,
> 
> This email (see below) has just arrived from Andrew Friend.  I wonder 
if we
> are in danger of competing amongst ourselves here, or is the role of 
N
> sufficiently far away to avoid problems?  Do you want me to talk with 
Andrew
> again or shall I wait for you to get back to me next week after 
contacting
> Martin?  Would Gerd Esser be one of 'our' C modellers?
> 
> Looking at the call for proposals it seems that 'Theme 1.1.1 Basic 
processes
> in the climate system' fits best for us since there is a specific 
item (5)
> which states:  'studies of global budgets of greenhouse gases with
> particular emphasis on fluxes, transformations and stroage in the 
biosphere,
> lithosphere and oceans.'
>  
> If not here, then maybe under '1.1.3 Climate variability, simulation 
of
> climate and prediction of climate change' since there is an item (4)
> 'Development, validation and application of models for important
> climate-related quantities such as mean sea-levels, storm and surge 
climates
> and carbon cycling.'  But here there is an emphasis on European 
approaches.
> 
> About EU politics, Balabanis is the guy for ESCOBA, but that doesn't 
mean he
> is necessarily the one for us.  Troen handles a lot of the climate 
projects
> in 1.1.1, 1.1.2 and 1.1.3.  We have quite a bit to do with him.  But 
it
> depends if there is someone else on carbon etc.  Maybe Balabanis is 
the
> place to start.
> 
> Regards,
> 
> Mike
> 
> **********************
> 
> Dear Mike
> 
> Thank you very much for your hospitality the other day. I enjoyed my 
visit and
> look forward to continued collaboration. With regard to ESCOBA, this 
project is
> in domain 1.1 of the Environment and Climate Programme, and is thus 
the
> responsibility of Balabanis.
> 
> Has there been any progress with regard to a new proposal? I have 
contacted
> Gerard Dedieu, and he says that he will have to think about the idea 
some more.
> Meanwhile, I have received an invitation from Gerd Esser (another 
ESCOBA
> partner) to put together a new proposal to look at 'The role of 
nitrogen in the
> carbon balance of the terrestrial biosphere' for submission in 
January. A
> couple of the other ESCOBA partners have expressed interest in this 
proposal.
> Part of the new project will be to use global process-based carbon 
models, such
> as our Hybrid model, to assess the biospheric sink for C (and its 
geographical
> distribution) over the period 1750 to 1990. I guess there could be a 
role for
> an improved climatology here.
> 
> I could investigate further the current intention with regard to 
climatology in
> this project if you wish.
> 
> Andrew
> 
>-- End of excerpt from Mike Hulme

2

   Global, spatially explicit assessment of the interannual
           variability in terrestrial carbon storage
                               
   VERY FIRST, INCOMPLETE draft for a new research proposal
             to be submitted to the European Union
 for the second phase of the Third Framework "Environment and
                           Climate"
                               
Goal

A critical uncertainty in assessments of global change impacts
and  feedbacks  is  the  source/sink relationship  for  carbon
between   atmosphere  and  the  terrestrial   biosphere,   and
particularly its interannual variability. Recent  advances  in
modelling  of  atmospheric and biospheric processes,  combined
with  significant progress in data gathering for climate,  CO2
and O2, now allow for a dedicated experiment that is likely to
reduce   this  uncertainty.  Equilibrium  approaches  to   the
simulation of global carbon fluxes are no longer adequate  for
this,  since  empirical studies are showing both  a  long-term
trend and a significant interannual variability of CO2 fluxes,
which appear to be most strongly driven by climatic impacts on
terrestrial vegetation.
Experimental design

For a time period of several decades, we propose to perform  a
simulation of biospheric carbon fluxes using:
ú    a range of currently available biospheric models (ongoing
 intercomparisons  indicate  that  there  is  no  clear  `best
 approach' - therefore this project will use several approaches
 <<<and  we  would like to include the CESBIO people  for  the
 testing  of  all model outputs against global  seasonal  fPAR
 observations - or does this overload the project?>>>),
ú      a  realistic,  historical  high-resolution  climatology
 (which  so  far  does not exist - a recent IGBP-workshop  has
 however clearly identified the need for it and what would  be
 necessary to achieve it within a short time-frame),
ú     a  land  use  map from currently available  observations
 <<<or from satellite?>>>,
ú     a  3D atmospheric transport model for the calculation of
 net  CO2  concentrations  at the  stations  where  these  are
 observed <<<and of course those measurements themselves>>>.

Land  use and different climatic elements will be combined  in
factorial combinations to investigate the role of each element
in the full system response.
<to be continued... A critical question to me at this time  is
whether the project should go for two timeframes: if there is,
in  addition  to the timeframe of available CO2  measurements,
also  a  10  year timeframe, then we could compare all  models
against  available seasonal fPAR profiles from satellites  and
hereby  assess  their  capacity to recover  other  aspects  of
biospheric  dynamics. Another question is  whether  we  should
also throw in a GCM experiment to allow for future scenarios.>
Expected results

ú     Improved  understanding of the  global  carbon  cycle  -
 realistic  seasonal and interannual simulations are essential
 for   identifying  regional  responses  of  the   terrestrial
 biosphere
ú    From that: Improvements of mitigation assessments such as
 those required by the IPCC
ú     Global, historical, high-resolution climatology which is
 required by other assessments of impacts of global change

Consortium participants
Contractors
ú     Potsdam  Institute  for Climate Impact  Research  (PIK),
 Potsdam,  Germany  (Wolfgang Cramer):  Project  coordination,
 experimental design and analysis
ú     Climatic Research Unit, University of East Anglia  (CRU-
 UEA),  Norwich, UK (Michael Hulme): Development of  a  global
 high-resolution historical climatology
ú     Max  Planck  Institute for Meteorology (MPIM),  Hamburg,
 Germany (Martin Heimann): Atmospheric transport model,  ocean
 component,  analysis  of  results against  measurements,  TBM
 simulations using SILVAN
ú    possibly a fourth one (CESBIO, Toulouse?) if we decide to
 go for a significant remote sensing component

Subcontractors

ú     Department of Ecology, Lund University, Lund, Sweden (I.
 Colin Prentice): TBM simulations using BIOME3
ú     Institute of Terrestrial Ecology, Edinburgh, UK  (Andrew
 Friend): TBM simulations using HYBRID
ú    Department of Chemistry, Frankfurt University, Frankfurt,
Germany (Gundolf H. Kohlmaier): TBM simulations using FBM
ú    Sheffield University, Sheffield, UK (F. Ian Woodward):
TBM simulations using Sheffield-DGVM or DOLY
ú     (if  politically  possible:) Center  for  Resources  and
 Environmental  Studies, Australian National University  (ANU-
 CRES),   Canberra,   Australia   (Michael   F.   Hutchinson):
 Development of suitable scaling algorithms for climatic  data
 assimilation


