date: Tue May 22 18:06:10 2001
from: Mike Hulme <m.hulme@uea.ac.uk>
subject: Fwd: quick question about near term climate change
to: t.mitchell

   Tim,
   Can you help on this one?  Refer to me only if you get stuck.
   Mike

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     Date: Tue, 22 May 2001 16:01:28 +0100
     From: Sari Kovats <Sari.Kovats@lshtm.ac.uk>
     To: "m.hulme" <m.hulme@uea.ac.uk>
     Cc: Tony McMichael <t.mcmichael@lshtm.ac.uk>
     Subject: quick question about near term climate change
     X-Virus-Scanned: by AMaViS snapshot-20010407
     Dear Mike
     Hope you are well. We are struggling a little bit about climate change before 2010 and
     need some advice.
     We have this project for WHO - the global burden of disease fro climate change - which
     requires estimates for the following years
     2000
     2001
     2005
     2010
     2020
     2030
     We have agreed to use estimates based on predictive modelling - mainly the fast track
     work plus some other models. Therefore, we decided in advance to set all climate change
     and climate impacts at zero at 2000 - which is the reference point for the global burden
     of disease exercise.
     Our problem is the that the baseline climate is the 1961-90. Which could mean that all
     deviation from this normal is defined at "climate change". Although this would be
     observed and not modelled.
     I think it is conceptually easier for set climate change and impacts at zero for 2000.
     We could  say  that some climate change has occurred but we are not confident enough to
     say that health impacts have occurred (and do not want to estimate them).
     We are using the fast track climate scenarios  - HadCM2 ensemble mean and s750 and s550
     scenarios - for 2050s and 2020s.
     In order to provide estimates for years before 2020 we need to interpolate back to 1990
     - which is when climate change starts (according to models). This means that we would be
     able to estimate impacts for 2000 - as curve would not go through zero - but we probably
     wont present them to WHO.
     Having just answered our own questoins - do you think this is OK?
     In one of the tables you produced for the fast track work (see attached) - does figure
     0.3 refer to observed change in annual global surface mean temperature (average for
     decade 1990 to 1999) compared to 1961-1990 30 year average? We could apply this to our
     models and see if it fits with our interpolated estimates.
     thanks  very much.
     Sari
     *******************
     Sari Kovats
     Research Fellow
     Centre on Globalisation, Environmental Change and Health
     Dept of Epidemiology and Population Health
     London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine
     Keppel St
     London WC1E 7HT
     tel: +44 20 7612 7844
     fax: +44 20 7580 6897
     sari.kovats@lshtm.ac.uk
