cc: Sandy.Tudhope@ed.ac.uk, matcollins@meto.gov.uk, t.osborn@uea.ac.uk
date: Fri, 17 Dec 1999 12:02:02 +0000 (GMT)
from: Simon Tett <sfbtett@meto.gov.uk>
subject: Summary
to: Keith Briffa <k.briffa@uea.ac.uk>


Dear Keith, Tim, Sandy and Mat,
     here is a brief summary of what (I think) we agreed.  

1) We are going to put together an EU proposal.

2) This proposal will include continuation of the high density
   tree-ring density network work (UEA, Swiss, Finns, Russians and
   Swedes), some modeling work (HC, MPI), tropical pacific coral data
   (Sandy at Edinburgh) and some comparison work (UEA, HC, and MPI)

3) Keith will write a 2 paragraphs or so project aims email. i.e what
   questions are we trying to answer.

4) I'll talk to Ulrich to thrash out the modeling details.

5) All partners should put in a preliminary list of tasks and
   timescales by 24/12/99.

6) We need to be aware (and our proposal needs to provide evidence that
   we can meet them) of all the other EU criterion apart from
   scientific excellence.  

   Therefore we should have some resource in the proposal for
   dissemination to both the scientific community, to the general
   public and to the policy community. 

   We would expect the following skills/information to be
   developed. Modellers to have a better appreciation of proxy data --
   what it is good for and bad for! The Proxy community to have some
   appreciation of the issues that worry Modellers. We also plan to
   develop people with the skills to use models to understand and
   interpret proxy data -- a new breed!

   We talked about having tasks for each group with timescales. I
   think we thought that straight forward. One issue we talked about
   was quality criteria. I think we thought that an open meeting with
   invited experts (for the data) was one way forward. Papers would be
   reviewed within the project. What about software??

   Outputs (with the info) would be modeling centres who would use it
   to produce better models. Think we need to justify modelling work!
   At this stage we are attempting to do model validation. I guess
   major motivation is with possible future climate change. Users of
   the info on "real" climate variability would be:

   1) Energy
   2) Agriculture -- note euro agriculture is fairly homogeneous and
   so more sensitive to 10 cold years in a row!
   3) Insurance industry (re-insurance really!)

Must mention Kyoto, "Dangerous" climate change, "surprises", CLIVAR, PAGES and
could nick justifications from those documents.


Simon

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