cc: Stephan Bojinski <SBojinski@wmo.int>, Adrian.Simmons@ecmwf.int
date: Tue Apr 15 09:56:20 2008
from: Phil Jones <p.jones@uea.ac.uk>
subject: Re: AOPC-XIV
to: D.E.Harrison@noaa.gov

    Ed,
       Hope Nick sends something before next week.
    When the Nature paper comes out we will be doing a very carefully
    crafted press release - about the 1940s SSTs.
       I can add more in on paleo if you want.  The ice core isotopes vs local
    and more distant temperatures work is fairly self contained. The usefulness of
    corals improves also with cross-dating and they would benefit from looking
    further into exactly what the corals respond to. All these sorts of analyses
    are pretty standard stuff in dendrocliamtology.
       For your flight over I'll attach a submitted paper on this and another
    one that has just come out on AD 536.  The latter year is allegedly the
    year Arthur died, and the poor harvests in Europe at the time could have
    led to the Justinian Plague!
       There is also some more work in submission that shows that massive
    volcanic eruptions changes the odds in favour of El Nino's - both modelling
    and observational. Also short (50-100 year bits) coral sequences from the
    period 1000-1300 suggest that La Nina was more common than today during
    the MWP. They also show that El Nino was more frequent later during the LIA.
    All a bit counter-intuitive initially, but when you put the volcanic record up
    against longer-term ENSO measures you begin to see some links....
    Cheers
    Phil
   At 19:06 14/04/2008, ed harrison wrote:

     I'd really love to hear about the ice core results, Phil!
     It seems that the paleo data are getting more and more emphasis....
     Am delighted to have you report your take on the ICOADS issues.
     Nick Rayner has promised a report on the SST/Sea Ice WG, but haven't got anything from
     her yet...so cannot give perspective on what she'll send.
     The much-increased drifting buoy data are a real issue at the 0.1C level for global
     ocean analyses.  They are showing gratifyingly good buoy/buoy comparisons, I'm told.
     But they don't measure what ship intakes measure, to be sure.
     best.  ed
     Phil Jones wrote:

      Stephan,

           I realize I've not sent any reports for the meeting. I'm scheduled to give
      something for paleo at some point. I'm in Vienna at EGU from Wednesday, so
      will prepare something.
         I have noticed in the agenda that I can respond to a few of the action points. No
      need to alter agenda at this stage.
      1. Surface Water Vapour - I can find a few ppt of about 5-10 minutes on this new
     dataset.
      2. The effect of changes to the SST data in the 1940s. A paper in Nature will appear
      on this in June/July in Nature. This relates to the changing mix of obs that go into
      ICOADS (so a bit like the changes in XBTs that will likely alter the OHC curve).
      3. Related to this there are possible changes in SSTs going on now as we have
      a much greater percentage of bouy as opposed to ship SST data.
          These 2 items best with whatever Ed says - say 10-15 mins. The surface water vapour
      dataset best at this point also, as the issues that relate to it are more marine
     related.
      4. Some recent paleo advances - improved understanding of Greenland Ice Cores.
         This item only if there is time - say 10-15 mins.
      See you all Monday. I'll be there for the AGG in the morning.
      Cheers
      Phil
     Prof. Phil Jones
     Climatic Research Unit        Telephone +44 (0) 1603 592090
     School of Environmental Sciences    Fax +44 (0) 1603 507784
     University of East Anglia
     Norwich                          Email    p.jones@uea.ac.uk
     NR4 7TJ
     UK
     ----------------------------------------------------------------------------

     Prof. Phil Jones
     Climatic Research Unit        Telephone +44 (0) 1603 592090
     School of Environmental Sciences    Fax +44 (0) 1603 507784
     University of East Anglia
     Norwich                          Email    p.jones@uea.ac.uk
     NR4 7TJ
     UK
     ----------------------------------------------------------------------------
