date: Wed, 22 Aug 2001 21:06:40 +0100 from: "Catovsky, Sebastian" subject: Greenpeace Climate Change Collaboration to: "'m.hulme@uea.ac.uk'" Dear Dr Hulme, I'm currently a post-doc at Imperial College Silwood Park working predominantly on impacts of global change on natural ecosystems. Recently, however, I've begun a collaboration with Greenpeace UK to look at direct impacts of climate change on humans. Greenpeace are keen to relate global issues in climate change to local effects in the UK - so that people can better see the consequences of changing energy consumption patterns. Greenpeace have this idea of distinguishing inevitable changes in climate from those that are avoidable if we reduce fossil fuel use. That way, people can recognize how their actions can achieve something tangible. They'd like to pinpoint specific areas in the UK that will be most sensitive to future climate changes - e.g. certain coastal areas if sea level rises. Anyway, they drafted me in to tackle this from a scientific standpoint. After some hard thinking, I've begun to think that some of the new IPCC Climate Scenarios reflect the inevitable vs. avoidable distinction very well. The A1 family of scenarios reflect a range of emission trajectories that clearly characterize different levels of fossil fuel dependence, from intensive use (A1FI) to alternative energy sources (A1T). Using these scenarios to drive our climate predictions would clearly highlight which impacts are avoidable if we take action now. I'd been now thinking about how we could specifically utilize these scenarios to develop some tangible climate impacts, and Doug Parr at Greenpeace mentioned your name. I think Greenpeace would be interested in investing some resources in the project if we could produce some testible hypotheses about effects of reducing fossil fuel use on UK climate - perhaps start with sea level, then consider rain fall or temp? In addition, IPCC originally had set up different scenarios for coal vs. oil/gas dependence (something else Greenpeace are very interested in), but they do not show these distinctions in the Technical Summary. I wonder if you'd be interested in collaborating in such a project. I'd be delighted to hear your thoughts on the matter, either way. At the moment, the project is quite fluid. Obviously, I'd expect to take on the bulk of the work - but I have no experience with running climate simulations etc., so I'd need a kick-start with someone with more experience in climate change modelling. I'd hope that we could benefit from funding from Greenpeace, and at least one credible scientific publication out of the work. Let me know your thoughts on this matter. I'd be happy to talk further with you on the phone, if it's more convenient. Best regards, Sebastian _______________________________________________________ Sebastian Catovsky, PhD NERC Centre for Population Biology Imperial College at Silwood Park Ascot, Berks SL5 7PY UNITED KINGDOM Tel: 020 7594 2483 Fax: 01344 873173 http://www.cpb.bio.ic.ac.uk