cc: date: Thu, 16 Dec 1999 07:43:35 +0100 from: "ZKundzewicz" subject: Canberra mtg to: , , , , , , , , , , , , Dear Colleague, This is to inform you that the Second Lead Author Meeting in Canberra went well. The plan for the meeting foresaw ample time for group work on particular chapters. In fact, the actual agenda largely differed from the planned one. Much of the time allocated to the group work on chapters was used by ad-hoc plenary sessions addressing cross-cutting issues, vulnerability, Chapter 19, and also by sessions convened by authors of sectorial chapters willing to interact with regional colleagues. All working sessions on our Chapter were attended by the following experts: Lead Authors: Jarle Holten, Zdzislaw Kaczmarek, Mats Oquist Review Editor: Julia Seixas Co-ordinating Lead Author: Z. W. Kundzewicz. One working session on our Chapter was attended by Nigel Arnell, Wolfgang Cramer and Jean Palutikoff, who were generally working on other (sectorial) chapters. Member of IPCC Bureau, Jan Pretel attended selected sessions of group work on our Chapter. Some authors, including the Co-coordinating Lead Author – Martin Parry and Lead Author – Robert Nichols, who could not make it to Canberra, forwarded their, most useful, remarks on the First Order Draft and the reviewers' comments. It was expected to finalize two draft documents while in Canberra, that is, Chapter 13 contribution to the Summary for Policymakers (SPM) and Executive Summary (to be used in the Technical Summary for WG2 TAR as well). We have done this job as well as we could and produced the two documents attached to the present message for your perusal. As this is just a draft which could and should be up-graded, your criticism is most welcome. I wish to note that our Review Editor, Julia Seixas, was very colllaborative and her constructive contributions helped in our work on Chapter 13 in Canberra. At the meeting it was decided that authors responsible for particular topical areas will react to the reviewers' comments and will up-grade the text. Those present have made specific pledge (with time frame - by the end of the year or so). Yet, we found that it was not possible to do this job on the spot in Canberra, in absence of several key players. In a couple of days I will send specific requests to most of you. What is needed is: 1 - to provide annotated review and 2 - to revise a portion of the text relevant to one's competence. The former needs your reaction to every single reviewers' comment (e. g. "done" or "authors disagree, because ..."). The latter means the process of up-grading the text, in which two conflicting objectives have to be fulfilled. On the one hand, reviewers typically request more text (introducing new items, clarification). On the other hand, our chapter is far too long and needs to be shortened by one third or so. That is, what we need is to extend a little and to cut a lot. What we also decided during our group meetings in Canberra was that, seeking for improved fairness, we have to re-think the authorship. Contributions of some CAs were very minor, or in fact disappeared in the present draft. On the other extreme, some experts, who authored substantial parts of the Chapter are CAs only. This is so, because of the need to compromise the balanced geographical distribution and the financial implications (attendance of LAs from developing countries and countries in transition is financed from the IPCC Trust Fund). Yet, if an expert is already an LA of another chapter and has contributed substantially (e. g. by several pages of essential text) to our chapter as well being CA only, she/he should be promoted to the level of LA in Chapter 13. The only limitation could be - nationality, as the promotion might be heavily dominated by UK experts. Jan Pretel. IPCC Bureau member, saw no difficulties with this (though such a proposal needs to undergo a formal process). We also decided that those CAs whose contributions "evaporated" from the text, may be deleted from the list of authors. I will contact you again in a couple of days with more information and more specific requests. Best wishes Zbyszek Kundzewicz