date: Mon, 07 Feb 2000 11:23:33 +0000 from: Phil Jones subject: Re: Draft of RP4 (Extremes etc) to: John Shepherd , Neil Adger ,Peter Allen , Julian Andrews , Nigel Arnell , Terry Barker , Frans Berkhout , Abigail Bristow , Kate Brown ,Melvin Cannell , Tom Choularton , Trevor Davies ,Paul Dennis , Jim Halliday ,Mike Hulme , Nick Jenkins , Andy Jones , Jonathan Kohler , Brian Launder , Peter Liss , Gordon MacKerron , Tom Markvart , Michael McIntyre , Chris Nash , "Tim O'Riordan" , Jean Palutikof ,Martin Parry , Sarah Raper , Nick Reynard , Darren Robinson , Simon Shackley , John Shepherd , Steve Sorrell , Koen Steemers ,Kerry Turner , Andy Watkinson ,Andy Watson , Ian Woodward John, Here are a few comments from a reading over the weekend. At times the flow of the text isn't good. I've a few suggestions later. 1) LIA 1450-1850 2) There is only some concern rather than serious concern about the THC. Neither HadCM2 nor HadCM3 turn it off, only reduces it a little. If it turns off there is nothing we can do about it, except try and survive. I would play this down a bit, even say it is scaremongering by Rahmstorf. 3) Italicised bit : Water resources are sensitive but there will be more rainfall (at the wrong time of year in the winter half), so it isn't as though we are losing it, it will be more of a distributional problem in the future. Southern Europe manages with little summer rainfall, so we should be able to. Just completed a report for the Combined Sewer Overflow(CSO) group of UKWIR and the water quality aspect is important. CSO's will need to allow for greater designs as storms will be slightly more intense. Here we used the RCM fields of daily precip. More could be made of regional climate model output when you talk about downscaling later. Changes to seasonal cycles of precip will mean less water in rivers in the late summer, so less dilution potential for sewage outfalls. 4) The section on the scenario generation seems out of place. I can see why you need this interface, but it would be better with the modelling section. The scenarios will come from the Hadley Centre, both for large scale models like HadCM2/3/4 and the regional climate model integrations. I'd put this at the begining of the modelling section, saying we (Tyndall) will get all this from the HC. 5) The distinction about real extremes and boundary conditions is important. It sits there quite happily and I don't see where else it could go. Maybe it could go in the first paragraph of the whole thing. It is necessary to have it somewhere. 6) The HC should be upfront at the begining of the modelling section. 7) downscaling which you mention in Impacts could also be in modelling. It could be here but it gets lost a bit here. 8) Technology - this should say something about incorporating future changes into designs. Changes/modifications to engineering concepts such as design storms. It is possible to modify these. CSO's are currently being put in all across the UK. Investments of billions of pounds. They are based on historic events. I've shown them how the RCM results can be used. I went to see the group last week. They wanted to know to the nearest mm what the change in design storm total precip over different regions of the UK will be for possible futures. CSO units can't be redesigned incrementally. They need to incorporate effects of climate change now. Cheers Phil Prof. Phil Jones Climatic Research Unit Telephone +44 (0) 1603 592090 School of Environmental Sciences Fax +44 (0) 1603 507784 University of East Anglia Norwich Email p.jones@uea.ac.uk NR4 7TJ UK ----------------------------------------------------------------------------