date: Wed Dec 10 12:54:17 2003 from: Keith Briffa subject: Re: tree rings and Rapid Climate Change to: andreas.kirchhefer@ib.uit.no Andreas first congratulations on parenthood. As for the RAPID bid , I can only wish you well . As far as I interpret the British call - there is NO restriction on using ocean data only. I am not sure how the Norwegians will interpret their proposal call - but I suspect your suspicion is correct as they are strongly influenced by the oceanic community. I have supported Danny's previous proposals strongly , and was very disappointed that he did not get support under the first RAPID call . I did my best to get his proposal funded and it was on the border line , literally, when it went down . Of all the people working with isotopes in wood , he has the clearest , and reasonably honest approach and I would back him above others to produce valuable results. It remains to be seen whether these will eventually yield significantly better / different results to warrant the effort in combining the isotope and ring width / density input - but I remain supportive of him getting the chance to prove it. I have no holy insight into whether what you suggest will succeed - but from what you say , it is not likely to fly without a close link to model studies ( and perhaps some support evidence of the influence of cyclone track variability from ocean circulation ?) . The is also the need to specify the nature of the "Rapid" (i.e. in time event or whatever) focus. Just saying we will produce long (even high-resolution ) data will not likely mark your project out strongly enough. I am saying this in an attempt to be constructive - even if I sound somewhat negative. For my part , I congratulate you on the progress you are making. I would certainly happily support any future proposals or applications for extended support you might make to the Norwegian funders. As of now, I have no specific EC plans - though some of us are continuing to fight a long battle in Brussels to get a palaeoclimate "New instrument" included under FP6 . As I speak , this is very far from certain and even if we manage to get some palaeo work included in the call, expected in summer or autumn 2004, this may be for a vague or extended time scale (including inter glacials ) and competing proposals will then likely be submitted reflecting this lack of focus. I have been pushing for a Holocene focus - linking data and models - but this is looking much less likely , if not dead already. We will not know more for some time. Finally, one point and request. I have started to put together multiple data to construct a picture of late-Holocene temperature change in Northern Fennoscandia and hopefully ( as part of an existing EC project , ALP-IMP) , compare the aggregated ( and hopefully more robust) series with similar tree-ring data in the Greater Alpine Region. I would be very grateful for permission to use your data in this exercise. I am also committed to give talks on tree-ring variability in early January in Bangor , and later in Bergen next year , and similarly, any chronology data you could provide me with for these talks (to produce comparison plots) would be similarly appreciated. I would also like to move towards putting a review paper together ( perhaps for Quaternary Science Reviews) of long European chronology-based climate inference , and would like to do this as a joint paper with Yourself , Hakan Grudd , the Finns and other European colleagues. Any interest? very best wishes Keith At 01:01 PM 12/8/03 +0100, you wrote: Dear Keith, together with Danny McCarroll and Neil Loader, I intend to submit a proposal to the Rapid Climate Change call (15.12.). We thought about extending our 13C-record from tree rings in Forfjorddalen back to 1500, produce another one in Scotland, and then interpret all that in terms of storm tracks and other parameters related to the North Atlantic. Now, the Norwegian Research Council says that the program is strictly oceanographic, whereas the British program description seems to be slightly wider. I see that you are in the steering committee of RAPID, so do you have any information/advice concerning our proposal? Else, my postdoc-project is approaching its end (late April incl. 4 weeks of parental leave). The Forfjord-chronology is prolonged back to ca. AD 1200 (EPS 85%), and the Stongslandseidet-chronology back to ca. 1450 (final revision awaiting). Last week I probably filled the gap in the Dividalen chronology, so now it's continuous back to AD 320. The period 1000-1500 is still poorly replicated, but I have another 50 samples to be measured. I hope I can start working on the subfossil samples in spring. Fortunately, a student of Dieter Eckstein will join me in January. He'll do his master on climate response of my lakeshore pines. Best regards, Andreas PS: Please, let me know if there are any EU-projects under preparation which could be relevant for me to join :) ---------------------- Andreas J. Kirchhefer Institutt for biologi Universitetet i Tromsų 9037 Tromsų tlf 776 46 061 fax 776 46 333 andreas.kirchhefer@ib.uit.no [1]http://www.ib.uit.no/~andreas -- 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[3]/