cc: jto@u.arizona.edu,Eystein Jansen date: Thu Jan 6 10:11:46 2005 from: Keith Briffa subject: Fwd: Re: Fwd: Re: [Wg1-ar4-ch06] IPCC last 2000 years data to: solomina@gol.ru Olga am sending this to get you in this loop re the discussion for slimming down the 2000 year section Basically , IN THIS BIT - the decision is to reduce the glacier evidence to a very much smaller piece , coached in the sense of how the glacier evidence is problematic for interpreting precise and quantitative indications of the extent of regional or Hemispheric Warmth (and even cold) - issues of translating tongue position or volume into specific temperature and precipitation forcing . Hence , I am having to remove the stuff you sent and am asking if you could consider trying to write a brief section dealing with the issues I raise ? I also attach some initial comments by David Rind (on the full first draft of the chapter sent round by Eystein) for consideration Sorry about this - but presumable (as you suggested earlier) some of this can go in the 10K bit. You can shout at me (and the others) later! cheers Keith Hi Keith - Happy new year. Hopefully, you had a good holiday. I've had a chance to read your section and hopefully you've had a chance to read what I sent just before the holidays. The purpose of this email is to help get a focus on the finish line (just a few days away) and to get a dialog going that will hopefully help you finish section 6.3.2.1. If you'd like to talk on the phone, just let me know. Please see my email from right before xmas holidays for original comments. Plus, here are the new ones from both me and David Rind: 0) as leader of this KEY section, we need you to take the lead integrating everything you think should be integrated, editing and boiling it down to just ca 4 pages of final text (e.g., 8 pages of typed text plus figs). This means cutting some material (e.g., forcings and simulations) and perhaps moving glacier record (MUCH boiled down) to a box. See below. 00) note that we can also perhaps move some of the details to the appendix (although we won't write this until after the current ZOD crunch, save an outline of what you might want in there). 1) I like your figure ideas, with the comments: 1a) I don't think you need figure 1d - the SH recons are sketchy since not much data, and it might be better to just discuss in a sentence or three. Any space saved is good too. Not sure about your proposed 1e - have to see it, I guess. 1b) Figure 2 looks interesting. I'm trying to get the latest Arctic recon from Konrad Hughen - it is quite robust and a significant multi-proxy update. Should be published in time, though not sure thing since he's still hot on including his (our) AO recon which is more sketchy 1c) I think we can save space and improve organization if we DO NOT include Fig 3. However, this is open for debate - see David's comments below. 2) I agree with David's comments in general - so see them below. The prickly issue is where to put the forcings and simulated changes. I am close to having the prose from the radiation chapter, including the latest Lean and Co's view on solar - this will make many of the existing simulations involving inferred past solar forcing suspect (I will send in a day or so I hope). This means that we might be best saving space and downplaying this work some. I'm not sure, but wanted to debate it with you. Also, Chap 9 will have simulations in spades, so we can save space by letting them do it. Also, as David points out, we can focus on it elsewhere in our chapter more concisely - leaving you to focus on the VERY important obs record of temp and other changes. Can you tell, I'm still not 100% sure? I'll send another email to you and others about this in a bit. 3) Your section is too long and needs to be condensed. Thus, you need to think through what's most important and what's less so. For example, we need to figure out how to condense the glacier record of change. David thinks it should be a separate section that cuts across time scales (i.e., Holocene and last 2000 years). Perhaps we should try to make it into a box - 3 to 5 short paragraphs and a figure or two. Either way we have to really wack it. What do you think - you and I should be on the same page with Eystein before discussing w/ Olga perhaps. Or you can discuss with her - you're the lead on this section. 4) you're doing an impressive job! Lots to keep track of. Next, here is what David has offered. Take it all with a grain of salt, but I have read it and he has many good points. On the structural or any other points, I'm happy to discuss on the phone, or you can just debate with him and me on email. ******* From David Rind 1/4/05 **************** 6.3 Understanding Past Climate System Change (forcing and response) 6.3.1 Introduction (0.5 pages) 6.3.2 The Current Interglacial 6.3.2.1 Last 2000 years (4 pages) Figure 1 should be of the last 2000 years, with appropriate caveats, not just since 1860 (which will undoubtedly be in other chapters). pp. 8-18: The biggest problem with what appears here is in the handling of the greater variability found in some reconstructions, and the whole discussion of the 'hockey stick'. The tone is defensive, and worse, it both minimizes and avoids the problems. We should clearly say (e.g., page 12 middle paragraph) that there are substantial uncertainties that remain concerning the degree of variability - warming prior to 12K BP, and cooling during the LIA, due primarily to the use of paleo-indicators of uncertain applicability, and the lack of global (especially tropical) data. Attempting to avoid such statements will just cause more problems. In addition, some of the comments are probably wrong - the warm-season bias (p.12) should if anything produce less variability, since warm seasons (at least in GCMs) feature smaller climate changes than cold seasons. The discussion of uncertainties in tree ring reconstructions should be direct, not referred to other references - it's important for this document. How the long-term growth is factored in/out should be mentioned as a prime problem. The lack of tropical data - a few corals prior to 1700 - has got to be discussed. The primary criticism of McIntyre and McKitrick, which has gotten a lot of play on the Internet, is that Mann et al. transformed each tree ring prior to calculating PCs by subtracting the 1902-1980 mean, rather than using the length of the full time series (e.g., 1400-1980), as is generally done. M&M claim that when they used that procedure with a red noise spectrum, it always resulted in a 'hockey stick'. Is this true? If so, it constitutes a devastating criticism of the approach; if not, it should be refuted. While IPCC cannot be expected to respond to every criticism a priori, this one has gotten such publicity it would be foolhardy to avoid it. In addition, there are other valid criticisms to the PC approach. Assuming that the PC structure stays the same was acknowledged in the Mann et al paper as somewhat risky, given the possibility of altered climate forcing (e.g., solar). Attempting to reconstruct tropical temperatures using high latitude PCs assumes that the PCs are influenced only by global scale processes. In a paper we now have in review in JGR, and in other papers already published, it is shown that high latitude climate changes can directly affect the local expression of the modes of variability (NAO in particular). So attempting to fill in data at other locations from PCs that could have local influences may not work well; at the least, it has large uncertainties associated with it. The section from p.18-20 - simulations of temperature change over the last millennium , including regional expressions - should not be in this section. It is covered in the modeling section (several different times), and will undoubtedly be in other chapters as well. And the first paragraph on p. 19 is not right - only by using different forcings have models been able to get similar responses (which does not constitute good agreement). The discussion in the first paragraph of p. 20 is not right - the dynamic response is almost entirely in winter, which would not have affected the 'warm season bias' paleoreconstructions used to prove it. It also conflicts with ocean data (Gerard Bond, personal communication). Anyway, it's part of the section that should be dropped. pp. 20-28: The glacial variations should be summarized in a coherentglobal picture. Variations as a function of time should be noted - not just lumped together between 1400 and 1850 - for example, it should be noted where glaciers advanced during the 17th century and retreated during the 19th century, for that is important in understanding possible causes for the Little Ice Age (as well as the validity of the 'hockey stick'). The discussion on the bottom of p.25-27 as to the causes of the variations is inappropriate and should be dropped - note if solar forcing is suspect, every paragraph that relates observed changes to solar forcing will be equally suspect (e.g., see also p. 44, first paragraph). Bottom of p. 27: Greene et al. (GRL, 26, 1909-1912, 1999) did an analysis of 52 glaciated areas from 30-60N and found that the highest correlation between their ELA variations in the last 40 years was with summer season freezing height and winter season precip. The warm season freezing height was by far more important. Therefore, the relationship of glacier variations to NAO changes (which are important only in winter), as discussed in this paragraph, while perhaps valid for a period of time in southern Norway, is not generally applicable. p. 34-36 on forcings: note that this is redundant to what is discussed in several later sections (e.g., 6.5.2); and other chapters), and that is true of forcing in general for the whole of section 6.2. I would strongly suggest dropping forcing from section 6.3.2.1, at least, and perhaps giving it its own number, or referring to othersubsections for it. It has a different flavor from the responses, and the section is already very big. Forcing does need to be discussed in the paleoclimate chapter, for reasons of climate sensitivity and explaining observations, but that is what Chapter 6.5 is about. (In summary - 6.3.2.1 already is taking on one controversy - paleotemperatures, which is needs to do better, It should not have to deal with the forcing problems as well, and especially not in an off-handed way.) Specific comments: p. 36: 6 ppm corresponds to a temperature response of 0.3 to 0.6°K using the IPCC sensitivity range. p. 36, last paragraph: one could equally well conclude that the reconstructions are showing temperature changes that are too small. This is the essence of the problem with the last 2000 years: if the reconstructions are right, either there was no solar forcing, or climate sensitivity is very low. If the real world had more variability, either there was solar forcing, or climate sensitivity is high (as is internal variability). I've tried to say this in the climate sensitivity sub-chapter. pp. 37-41: obviously a lot of overlap, but it shouldn't be hard to combine these. p. 39, first paragraph: but can the models fully explain what is thought to have happened? Quantification is important here, because many of the same climate/veg models are being used to assess future changes in vegetation. p. 42 - first full paragraph: what are the implications of the methane drop without a CO2 drop? p. 43, middle paragraph: obviously should mention solar-orbital forcing in this paragraph. p. 44, first paragraph: again, assuming a solar forcing p. 45, first paragraph: overlap with pp. 20-28. Second paragraph: overlap with p.39, last full paragraph p. 52 - repeat of p. 43. ******* END From David Rind 1/4/05 **************** X-Sender: jto@jto.inbox.email.arizona.edu Date: Wed, 5 Jan 2005 12:24:47 -0700 To: Keith Briffa From: Jonathan Overpeck Subject: Re: Fwd: Re: [Wg1-ar4-ch06] IPCC last 2000 years data Cc: Eystein Jansen , cddhr@giss.nasa.gov, Fortunat Joos , joos , "Ricardo Villalba" X-Virus-Scanned: by amavisd-new at email.arizona.edu X-UEA-MailScanner-Information: Please contact the ISP for more information X-UEA-MailScanner: Found to be clean Hi Keith and Co - I think David likes a good debates, so the main thing is to consider his comments and respond appropriately. Although the first priority has to be on the ZOD text and display items, maybe you can go back over his comments AFTER the looming deadline and further discuss things with David and others. For now, just work away. The biggest issue is how to handle forcing and simulations - i.e., where to put different pieces in the chapter. Eystein and I will help the team work through this. More soon, but for now just proceed as you have been proceeding. There is real merit to the concept that your section is about how climate varied over the last 2ka, and what caused these variations. The flip side is that we need to get a clear vision of how this differs from what goes into the other sections. Eystein and I will work more on this asap. Your plan re: glaciers is good. That's a tough one, but it has to be boiled WAY down. Moreover, my gut is to focus on the extent to which these complicated natural archives (e.g., complicated by ppt change) support or do not support the other proxy evidence/conclusions. This is why I was thinking we might think about a box, and to include the Lonnie perspective in it - e.g., glaciers are now melting everywhere (almost - we know why they are not in those places) in a manner unprecedented in the last xxxx years. Make sense? See what Olga says, and if needbe, I can help focus that stuff more. Thanks! Peck Hi Peck (et al) I am considering comments (including David's) re last 2000 years - some are valid = some are not . Will try to chop out bits but we need this consensus re the forcing and responses bit - I am for keeping the forcings in as much as they relate to the specific model runs done - and results for last 1000 years as I suspect that they will not be covered in the same way elsewhere . David makes couple good points - but extent to which forcings different (or implementation) perhaps need addressing here. The basic agreement I mean is that the recent warming is generally unprecedented in these simulations. It will take time and input from the tropical ice core /coral people to do the regional stuff well . I think the glaciological stuff is a real problem - other than just showing recent glacial states (also covered elsewhere) - of course difficult to interpret any past records without modelling responses (as in borehole data), but this requires considerable space . My executive decision would be to ask Olga to try to write a couple of papragraphs on limits of interpretation for inferring precisely timed global temperature changes? What do others think? I only heaved Olga's stuff in at last moment rather than not include it - but of course it needs considerable shortening. The discussion of tree-ring stuff is problematic because it requires papers to be published eg direct criticism of Esper et al. We surely do not want to waste space HERE going into this esoteric topic? All points on seasonality , I agree with , but the explicit stuff on M+M re hockey stick - where is this? ie the bit about normalisation base affecting redness in reconstructions - sounds nonsense to me ? I have to consider the comments in detail but am happy for hard direction re space and focus. If concensus is no forcings and model results here fine with me - Peck and Eystein to rule Keith -- Jonathan T. Overpeck Director, Institute for the Study of Planet Earth Professor, Department of Geosciences Professor, Department of Atmospheric Sciences Mail and Fedex Address: Institute for the Study of Planet Earth 715 N. Park Ave. 2nd Floor University of Arizona Tucson, AZ 85721 direct tel: +1 520 622-9065 fax: +1 520 792-8795 [1]http://www.geo.arizona.edu/ [2]http://www.ispe.arizona.edu/ -- Professor Keith Briffa, Climatic Research Unit University of East Anglia Norwich, NR4 7TJ, U.K. Phone: +44-1603-593909 Fax: +44-1603-507784 [3]http://www.cru.uea.ac.uk/cru/people/briffa/