date: Thu, 18 Jun 2009 23:44:35 +0100 (BST) from: C.Goodess@uea.ac.uk subject: [Fwd: RE: Launch of UKCP] to: p.jones@uea.ac.uk Hi Phil Despite Myles statement his has been the most negative voice today - interviewed on Newsnight - and Kirsy Wark also referred to criticism from LSE - Myles point seemed to be about going to too high a resolution (he mentioned 5 km) and lack of peer review. Kirsty Wark also went on about lack of peer review in an interview with Hilary Benn - but then her main complaint with him seemed to be the government not going far enough, eg., with respect to building on flood plains. But Hilary Benn has been pretty impressive all day. Generally I think things have gone quite well today. Though the emphasis has been on Met Office (Defra, UKCIP and UEA have all had fewer mentions). And in fact in the presentations today the weather generator and UEA only got mentioned once by Chris West. There were a lot of people at the launch - 200? - and most of the questions from stakeholders were more on policy issues than the projections. Managed to get one set of hard copies and a couple of CDs. This morning, I did a couple of radio interviews (by mobile) with Radio Norwich and Radio Heart (was Radio Broadland). I turned down an offer to be interviewed by ITN about sea level at Happisburgh! Suggested Stephen Dye instead (who was at launch today) - somebody else from CEFAS ended up doing it at Southwold - but not shown in the end on local or national news. Brian Hoskins was at the launch - spotted him berating Bob Watson in a corner! Nigel Arnell was also there - but very quiet. So now its back to the mundane things like promotion training and trying to get salary costings out of Janice! Hope things are going well in Colorado. Clare ---------------------------- Original Message ---------------------------- Subject: RE: Launch of UKCP From: "Myles Allen" Date: Wed, June 17, 2009 10:40 pm To: "Hoskins, Brian J" "Zwiers,Francis [Ontario]" "claudia tebaldi" C.Goodess@uea.ac.uk "Nigel Arnell" alberto.montanari@unibo.it elaine.barrow@sasktel.net "Carter Tim" "Wells N.C." corinna.schrum@gfi.uib.no "jaak monbaliu" -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Dear Brian, Thanks very much for this, and we all appreciate you are being put in an impossible position. I hope you don't mind my getting this off my chest to my fellow reviewers, and rest assured I won't be actively seeking to say anything to anyone tomorrow, but I'm afraid I don't accept that obtaining user buy-in is more important than implementing the recommendations of the scientific review panel. I also don't accept that the sensitivity studies they have done in response to our review (in which, I understand, cases in which changes to inputs had a substantial impact on results were quietly dropped), nor releasing the 11-member RCM ensemble, represent an adequate substitute for presenting what a conventional, IPCC-style, model-intercomparison exercise would have found. Yes, an IPCC inter-model range cannot be interpreted as a PDF (which I assume is the loss of functionality Bob is referring to), but this does not prevent it being useful as one measure of uncertainty: the US Climate Impacts Assessment that has just been released contains (as far as I can tell on a cursory reading) no PDFs, only inter-model ranges, and I'm sure many people will still find it useful. Will DEFRA's response be made public? It is potentially rather explosive, since the "buy in" remark implicitly acknowledges that, if users were offered a simpler alternative that they can actually understand, many, perhaps most, might prefer it. Myles ________________________________ From: Hoskins, Brian J [mailto:b.hoskins@imperial.ac.uk] Sent: 17 June 2009 14:59 To: Hoskins, Brian J; 'Zwiers,Francis [Ontario]'; 'claudia tebaldi'; Myles Allen; 'C.Goodess@uea.ac.uk'; 'Nigel Arnell'; 'alberto.montanari@unibo.it'; 'elaine.barrow@sasktel.net'; 'Carter Tim'; 'Wells N.C.'; 'corinna.schrum@gfi.uib.no'; 'jaak monbaliu' Subject: RE: Launch of UKCP Dear All UKCP will be launched tomorrow (see attachment). I asked DEFRA for a document saying how they had responded to our review and have received the attached from Bob Watson. I wanted you to have this information before the launch so that if you are contacted by anyone you can reply with a proper background. The response by DEFRA and the Met Office has been very significant , although not going the whole way we may have liked in a perfect world. There is no doubt that the product launched and the wrapper around it is a heck of a lot better for your efforts! Thanks again for you work on the review and the friendly way it was done. Best wishes Brian . Attachment Converted: "c:\eudora\attach\untitled-236.htm"