date: Fri, 15 May 1998 17:13:49 +0100
from: Mike Hulme <m.hulme@uea.ac.uk>
subject: DDC & Guidelines
to: tgcia@meto.gov.uk

Dear All,

I have some responses to various points raised in the Conference so far.
On Monday I wish to raise some more specific issues that remain unresolved
in the Guidelines and on the web site.

Paul Desanker:  the 'CRU climatology' has received no funding from IPCC.
It has been developed over a long period of time with many funders.  We
have a Part I paper coming out in J.Climate and a Part II paper in
preparation.  We have compared our new fields with Legates/Wilmott and
Leemans/Cramer (the two other most widely used to date, but both have
problems!).  Both Rik and Wolfgang have encouraged us in our work and
recognise that our new product is superior to theirs - indeed they are
already using our new dataset as are an increasing number of others.  We
include it not as an IPCC-endorsed product, but as *one* (useful) product
among many others.  People can of course use what they like.

Finer resolution (spatial and temporal) is part of our longer-term research
plan but we need funding and data!!!  We are working on it.  Tell as many
people who have influence that there *is* the potential to go down to 10k
resolution and daily time-steps, but only if data are forthcoming and
funding is in place.  Funders seem not to like funding such 'boring' data
work - we got turned down by the EU recently.

John Mitchell: I think John's point about a quick-look quide to the main
pitfalls in scenario use is important.  It can be in the Guidelines, but it
is also the sort of thing I intend to have on the web site under FAQs.
These have not been activated yet, but will do so gradually - and in
response to questions from DDC users.  This is a dynamic thing.
Suggestions welcome.

Luis Mata: interesting question about harmonising and/or simplyfing the web
site.  We have debated how to structure all the material - a 'single route'
through or 'multiple-links' between pages.  We have gone for the latter.
This may be too confusing in the end, although our desire was to allow
people to make quick connections between the various components essential
for scenario construction.  Other comments welcome on this.  The CD-ROM
will only contain the 30-year aggregates so there will be a degree of
uniformity among CD-ROM users rather than web users who can download all
monthly data.  In the end the data are the same, but what you can do with
them differs.

Martin Parry: on the question of 'hand-holding examples' for DDC users.
This is tricky.  The TGCIA, through Tim and the DDC, could certainly
provide these, but we then become rather prescriptive and since there are
many options and even more opinions on how best to handle all the issues
can the TGCIA (and IPCC?) endorse this?  I personally would like to be more
prescriptive (e.g. on incorporating uncertainties), but this may lead us
into trouble.  Tim has laid out the options very well.  Maybe we could
include some 'worked examples' in an Appendix or on the web site and
CD-ROM?  The role of training is important here, since the 'hand-holding'
is best done in this context.

About distribution: the Guidelines *must* exist in hardcopy, but we will
also attempt to put them on the web.  But I intend the CD-ROM (available
free for any user) would also contain them, as it will also include (I
hope) core datasets and some Tables and graphs.

I will raise my own questions on Monday - have a good weekend.

Mike



