cc: Thorsten Kiefer date: Wed, 19 Oct 2005 14:55:54 +0100 from: Phil Jones subject: Re: PAGES/CLIVAR workshop - past millennia variability to: Keith Briffa , Christoph Kull , "Michael E. Mann" , Heinz Wanner Dear All, I echo Keith's points. I didn't get a chance to talk to Keith today before he left for London. I have just had a phone call though from someone in the States. The person was Joel Smith from Stratus Consulting of Boulder, CO. His details are below. Their web site looks sound and Kevin Trenberth says they are OK. I talked to Kevin about them when they first approached me a year ago. What they wanted me to do was potentially organize a workshop on Climate Variability, decadal to centennial scale variability. What do we believe from obs and paleo and do models reproduce this. The funder for the workshop is EPRI who want to fund more in this area. The workshop would lead to an agenda for them. I mentioned our proposal and he asked me to send him this. I can't think of any good reason why not, so I'm about to do this. I'll cc this to all of you. I told him I'm away tomorrow and Friday, so he might get back to you Christoph if he likes the proposal. Why EPRI are using a company to organize meetings may seem odd, but this maybe how EPRI works. Mike may want to comment on this. EPRI has funded some good things in the past and thieir heart is in the right place. Nothing may come of this, it was just a case of chance - his phone call and your email yesterday, Christoph. Cheers Phil From: "Joel Smith" To: X-UEA-Spam-Score: 0.1 X-UEA-Spam-Level: / X-UEA-Spam-Flag: NO Hi Phil, It was great to talk to you just now. You have my e-mail. My phone is 1-303-381-8218 and the fax is 1-303-381-8200 I look forward to seeing the materials on the climate variability workshop. yours, Joel At 10:22 18/10/2005, Keith Briffa wrote: Christoph and friends Sorry to hear this. The motivation for CLIVAR involvment arose out of the PAGES/CLIVAR Intersection Committee meeting in Victoria last year , so if the meeting is held without CLIVAR input it would seem to have negative implications for the future of that Committee. On the other hand , the idea was tabled because of a crucial scientific need to co-ordinate a systematic comparison of methods of reconstruction (and implications for future model/data comparisons). Hence my feeling is that the meeting should go ahead as your second suggestion - but let CLIVAR know , and some support may also be forthcoming. If not, some of the potential attendees (me, Mike,Gavin etc.) can represent that CLIVAR involvement. cheers Keith At 09:21 18/10/2005, Christoph Kull wrote: Dear all, Finally I got a response back from CLIVAR regarding the attempt we made, getting funding for the planned workshop. Unfortunately, CLIVAR isn't able guaranteeing financial support for this planned joint event. They actually are in financial troubles and first need to sort out their budget for the coming period (see below). > We weren't > able to come to a view on this at the CLIVAR SSG Exec meeting as I > had hoped because of budget uncertainties both in terms of bids for > activities and the funds WCRP have available over the next biennium. > I have subsequently spoken to Valery Detemmerman about the > PAGES/CLIVAR Workshop. As you probably know, Valery looks after the > CLIVAR budget at the JPS for WCRP (I hold no funds for activities > here). She has the request noted but I'm afraid cannot commit until > there is more certain information about the whole WCRP and CLIVAR > budget situation. Rest assured that she is working on it. We will > get back to you on this as soon as we possibly can. so: what to do? We still have the 10k from PAGES available. Basically, there are two options: 1) postpone the event to 2007 - hoping that CLIVAR will be able to join. 2) holding a smaller event as originally planned in June 2006 (before or after the HOLIVAR meeting). We would then be restricted to include only a small group of participants, i.e. having from the key Labs / research groups one representative on board. Please let me know what you think! All the best and greetings from the PAGES office in Bern! Christoph -- Christoph Kull Science Officer PAGES IPO Sulgeneckstrasse 38 CH-3007 Bern Switzerland phone: +4131 312 31 53/33 fax: +4131 312 31 68 -- 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/ 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 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------