From: Keith Briffa <k.briffa@uea.ac.uk>
To: cbaisan@dakotacom.net
Subject: Re: help with an idea?
Date: Wed Aug  9 15:05:58 2006

   Dear Chris
   just wondering what became of my forwarded request (from you to Tony) ? Have not received
   any feedback and still anxious to follow this up
   cheers
   Keith
   At 15:53 17/10/2003, you wrote:

     Keith,
     I am inclined to forward your note to Tony Caprio - any objections?
     He has the best temperature sensitive foxtail pine material I am
     aware of.
     I have some sense that there is a change in regional climate
     patterns prior to 1000AD in the western US.  Not sure what or
     why...
     Matt Salzer and Malcolm Hughes are working on 3k yr material
     from temperature sensitive upper tree-line sites in the west.
     John King  knows a great deal about the Sierra collections and
     data.
     MaryBeth Keifer and Andrea Loyd-Faste collected the Sierra
     Foxtail you referred to.
     Chris B.
     > Hi Lisa and Chris and Ed
     >
     > The first point of this message is to ask for access to the raw data
     > for the Boreal and Camp Hill Foxtail pine chronologies (Lisa) that I
     > believe you and/or your students produced and similar data that you
     > may have (Chris). for the area inland of the Santa Barbara Basin ,
     > California. I am also trying to stimulate your interest and hopefully
     > start a joint collaboration (Lisa , Chris and Ed). Please allow me to
     > explain . I was reading some papers on the putative link between North
     > Atlantic temperatures (oxygen isotope record from Greenland) and
     > climate (bio-turbation index) in the Santa Barbara basin , on the
     > 1000-year time scale (papers by Boyle and Leuschner et al. in the
     > PAGES QSR Volume published in 2000). It got me to thinking whether a
     > robust regional temperature chronology for North west Scandinavia
     > might show any associations with any climate factors as represented in
     > either high or low elevation tree-ring chronologies in Western
     > California , at higher temporal resolution (perhaps decades to
     > century) - and hence whether there is any evidence for a thermohaline
     > link (or other more direct dynamic atmospheric connection) operating
     > on various  time scales. Of course there are problems with what
     > specific climate response one would investigate (in terms of season
     > and variable). However, as a first look I compared our Tornetrask
     > temperature reconstruction (JJA in Northern Sweden) with a (very) few
     > series I had for the west US - among which were the chronologies
     > mentioned above from AD 800 that Jan Esper and Ed  produced for their
     > Science paper,  using data supplied by Lisa I believe .
     >   Now I don't actually like the general way they applied the RCS ( -
     >   using
     > a very large scale standardisation curve  based on disparate data from
     > a very wide expanse of sites across the Northern Hemisphere - but as
     > Ed might say " it seems to work "). However,  the association between
     > the Tornetrask series  and the curves for Boreal/ Upper Wright  have
     > stimulated me to try to look deeper and  solicit your interest and
     > help. In my opinion, for the 600-year period between AD 1100 and 1700
     > the similarity in the 5 circa  120-year cycles that make up these
     > series certainly warrant serious further study. The similarity is not
     > apparent before this but the two California series themselves show
     > little agreement in the earlier 300 years of data that I have seen,
     > implying that the common signal at the regional level may not be well
     > represented in either anyway. This could be a standardisation issue
     > though. By producing more robust mean series and especially by
     > extending the series back before the post Christian era we could
     > significantly extend the power of the comparison. I would like to
     > establish well replicated series (using more-local RCS curves based
     > applied to  more, and longer,  data) for both the Tornetrask (and
     > possibly Northern Finnish) region and the combined set from Upper
     > Wright and Boreal and any other nearby Foxtail data ( from the region
     > of the 118 degrees west 36 degrees north) . We have earlier (than
     > circa AD 800 ) data for Tornetrask and Finland , showing good inter
     > region coherence . If we can establish stronger evidence of a North
     > Atlantic/Eastern Pacific link (at different time scales perhaps) we
     > can look at other high resolution records to establish the nature of
     > the likely forcing and the possible climate dynamic mechanisms. What
     > do you think? Can I play with your data to this end ?  Whatever you
     > think , I would appreciate it if you would treat this as confidential
     > and any thoughts on the idea , or pointers to relevant data sets are
     > still welcome.
     >   All the very best
     > Keith
     >
     > --
     > 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/
     >
     ):))  ) )) )) )  )).)) ) )) ) )) ) ).))
     Christopher Baisan
     Sr. Research Specialist
     Laboratory of Tree-Ring Research
     University of Arizona, Tucson 85721
     email: cbaisan@ltrr.arizona.edu
     tel: 520-621-7681
     Fax: 520-621-8229
     ).)) ) )) ) ) )) ).) )) ) )) ) ) )).) ) )) )))

   --
   Professor Keith Briffa,
   Climatic Research Unit
   University of East Anglia
   Norwich, NR4 7TJ, U.K.

   Phone: +44-1603-593909
   Fax: +44-1603-507784
   [2]http://www.cru.uea.ac.uk/cru/people/briffa/

References

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

