From: J Shukla <shukla@cola.iges.org>
To: IPCC-Sec <IPCC-Sec@wmo.int>
Subject: Future of the IPCC:
Date: Wed, 13 Feb 2008 16:46:33 -0500
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Dear All,


I would like to respond to some of the items in the attached text on 
issues etc. in particular to the statement in the section 3.1.1 
(sections 3: Drivers of required change in the future).

"There is now greater demand for a higher level of policy relevance in 
the work of IPCC, which could provide policymakers a robust scientific 
basis for action".

1. While it is true that a vast majority of the public and the 
policymakers have accepted the reality of human influence on climate 
change (in fact many of us were arguing for stronger language with a 
higher level of confidence at the last meetings of the LAs), how 
confident are we about the projected regional climate changes?

I would like to submit that the current climate models have such large 
errors in simulating the statistics of regional (climate) that we are 
not ready to provide policymakers a robust scientific basis for "action" 
at regional scale. I am not referring to mitigation, I am strictly 
referring to science based adaptation.

For example, we can not advise the policymakers about re-building the 
city of New Orleans - or more generally about the habitability of the 
Gulf-Coast - using climate models which have serious deficiencies in 
simulating the strength, frequency and tracks of hurricanes.

We will serve society better by enhancing our efforts on improving our 
models so that they can simulate the statistics of regional climate 
fluctuations; for example: tropical (monsoon depressions, easterly 
waves, hurricanes, typhoons, Madden-Julian oscillations) and 
extratropical (storms, blocking) systems in the atmosphere; tropical 
instability waves, energetic eddies, upwelling zones in the oceans; 
floods and droughts on the land; and various manifestations (ENSO, 
monsoons, decadal variations, etc.) of the coupled ocean-land-atmosphere 
processes.

It is inconceivable that policymakers will be willing to make 
billion-and trillion-dollar decisions for adaptation to the projected 
regional climate change based on models that do not even describe and 
simulate the processes that are the building blocks of climate 
variability. Of course, even a hypothetical, perfect model does not 
guarantee accurate prediction of the future regional climate, but at the 
very least, our suggestion for action will be based on the best possible 
science.

It is urgently required that the climate modeling community arrive at a 
consensus on the required accuracy of the climate models to meet the 
"greater demand for a higher level of policy relevance".

2. Is "model democracy" a valid scientific method? The "I" in the IPCC 
desires that all models submitted by all governments be considered 
equally probable. This should be thoroughly discussed, because it may 
have serious implications for regional adaptation strategies. AR4 has 
shown that model fidelity and model sensitivity are related. The models 
used for IPCC assessments should be evaluated using a consensus metric.

3. Does dynamical downscaling for regional climate change provide a 
robust scientific basis for action?

Is there a consensus in the climate modeling community on the validity 
of regional climate prediction by dynamical downscaling? A large number 
of dynamical downscaling efforts are underway worldwide. This is not 
necessarily because it is meaningful to do it, but simply because it is 
possible to do it. It is not without precedent that quite deficient 
climate models are used by large communities simply because it is 
convenient to use them. It is self-evident that if a coarse resolution 
IPCC model does not correctly capture the large-scale mean and transient 
response, a high-resolution regional model, forced by the lateral 
boundary conditions from the coarse model, can not improve the response. 
Considering the important role of multi-scale interactions and feedbacks 
in the climate system, it is essential that the IPCC-class global models 
themselves be run at sufficiently high resolution.


Regards,
Shukla


----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
IPCC-Sec wrote:
> Dear LAs & CLAs,
>
> Please find attached a letter and issues related to the future of the
> IPCC.
>
> With kind regards,
>
> Annie
>
> IPCC Secretariat
> WMO
> 7bis, Avenue de la Paix
> P.O. Box 2300
> 1211 Geneva 2
> SWITZERLAND
> Tel: +41 22 730 8208/8254/8284
> Fax: +41 22 730 8025/8013
> Email: IPCC-Sec@wmo.int 
> Website: http://www.ipcc.ch 
>  
> * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
>
>
>   

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