date: Mon Feb 18 16:15:08 2002
from: Keith Briffa <k.briffa@uea.ac.uk>
subject: Re: conclusion
to: "Raymond S. Bradley" <rbradley@geo.umass.edu>

   Fine Ray - see typo as caps below. My only suggestion is the possibility of  repeating that
   we have only explored selected regional evidence and that the high-res spatial coverage is
   markedly reduced before the 17th century.
   I am here and working on the annotated version now. I could do with seeing the latest
   version of the Figure legends please.
   Keith
   At 10:43 AM 2/18/02 -0500, you wrote:

     Tom Pedersen requested a concluding "wrap-up" to our chapter.  Here's what I wrote.  Any
     comments/additions/changes?
     ray
     Conclusion
     A wide range of proxies for past climate provide an invaluable long-term perspective on
     global climate variability, and proxies of past forcing allow natural factors affecting
     climate to be evaluated.  Together, these records indicate that recent warming is both
     unusual and not explicable in terms of natural factors alone.  By combining model
     simulations with paleoclimatic data, a better understanding of climate sensitivity and
     the climate system response to forcing is emerging.  Nevertheless, many uncertainties
     remain.  Paleoclimate research has had a strong northern hemisphere, extra-tropical
     focus; there are very few high resolution paleoclimatic records from the tropics or from
     the extra-tropical southern hemisphere.  Variability of major climate systems, such as
     the monsoons, is poorly documented.  Our understanding OF regional responses to forcing
     and how one part of the climate system may lead, or lag, another remains poor.  Much
     more work on these topics remains to be done.
     Climate variability over the last millennium provides the essential context for
     assessing future changes, even as anthropogenic effects become increasingly dominant.
     It is over the last millennium that modern societies have developed, coping with a wide
     range of climatic vicissitudes.  Much of the world still lives at a subsistence level,
     very much affected by both inter-annual and inter-decadal climate variability.  As we
     confront a world whose population is expected to increase from 6 billion people today to
     ~9-10 billion by 2060, paleoclimatic research can shed an important light on mechanisms
     of climate variability at these societally-relevant timescales.
     Raymond S. Bradley
     Distinguished Professor and Head of Department
     Department of Geosciences
     University of Massachusetts
     Amherst, MA 01003-5820
     Tel: 413-545-2120
     Fax: 413-545-1200
     Climate System Research Center: 413-545-0659
     Climate System Research Center Web Page:
     <[1]http://www.geo.umass.edu/climate/climate.html>
     Paleoclimatology Book Web Site (1999): [2]http://www.geo.umass.edu/climate/paleo/html

   --
   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[4]/

