date: Wed, 10 Mar 1999 09:39:04 +0100
from: Wolfgang Cramer <Wolfgang.Cramer@pik-potsdam.de>
subject: Re: gridded precip. data update
to: Mike Hulme <m.hulme@uea.ac.uk>

Dear Mike,

and what about the half-degree version? Is this going to be redone?
Would of course be very useful!

By the way, it was of course funny for me to discuss all sorts of
things with you last week, and then in the airplane to Amsterdam
finally open the last Nature issue and read your article. You were
quite modest in not mentioning it (I have a feeling you did send me a
draft of it earlier, but since I hadn't opened Nature on the way TO
London, I wasn't aware that it actually had been published). In fact,
that Nature issue was also interesting due to the short letter on
phenology by Menzel and others. Have you ever been involved in that
kind of work? We have one student working on it and Alberte (my wife)
works on the remote sensing of phenology. Obviously, all of this
depends heavily on appropriate observed climate data sets - another
aspect of potential collaboration.

As for our EU proposal, it now appears as if the specific slot
("ecosystem vulnerability") would not be opened before the end of
1999. To me, this is rather comfortable, since we can wait for the
outcome of other bids before precisely designing the A-TEAM. We will,
however, have our brainstorming meeting here next week anyway. I will
keep you informed. In the meantime, I will also try to find other ways
to involve you in proposals from here - principally, I have the policy
that we should at least subcontract you in projects that use the half
degree data set.

I am not quite sure how to push the IPCC/ACACIA BIOME3 runs. There
really is a political problem, I now realise, in showing NPP values
only, since they inevitably must increase with CO2. What I fear is
that, even if I write five times that this does not translate
automatically in increased carbon storage or any other good things,
then this may still be read by people to say just that: a greener
world where much of the fossil fuel emissions are safely stored away
in vegetation. What we really need to do is to run the DGVM, and this
is not quite in such a stable condition as BIOME3. Do you want to
continue pursuing the comparison business along the lines of your
Nature paper?

Cheers,

Wolfgang

On Mittwoch, 10. Mdrz 1999, you wrote:

> Dear Colleague,

> You are a registered user of my global gridded precipitation datasets.

> This is to announce that I have just completed an update of these datasets.
>  They now run from 1900 to 1998 and have been prepared at two resolutions:
> 5deg lat/long and on the Hadley Centre Unified Model grid (2.5 by 3.75).
> These latest dataset versions are more extensive and/or complete than
> earlier ones.  The gridded data are public domain.  I have put them on my
> web site through which they can be accessed:

> http://www.cru.uea.ac.uk/~mikeh/datasets/global/

> Please read the associated documentation files if you are using these data
> (see web site for these) and as before, if you download the data please
> email me so I can keep you on my register.  This work is funded by the UK
> Department of Environment, Transport and Regions and it is important for
> continuing support from my sponsor that you abide by these conditions and
> properly acknowledge the datasets.

> Mike

> P.S. No liability is accepted for errors, but if you find them please let
> me know!

> *****************************************************************************
> Dr Mike Hulme
> Reader in Climatology             tel: +44 1603 593162
> Climatic Research Unit            fax: +44 1603 507784
> School of Environmental Science   email:  m.hulme@uea.ac.uk
> University of East Anglia         web site: http://www.cru.uea.ac.uk/~mikeh/
> Norwich  NR4  7TJ
> *****************************************************************************
>          Annual mean temperature in Central England during 1999
>               is about +0.6 deg C above the 1961-90 average
>         ***************************************************
>       The global-mean surface air temperature anomaly for 1998
>  was +0.58 deg C above the 1961-90 average, the warmest year yet recorded
> *****************************************************************************



Best regards,
 Wolfgang

mailto:Wolfgang.Cramer@pik-potsdam.de




