cc: p.jones@uea.ac.uk, k.briffa@uea.ac.uk, mann@psu.edu, wanner@giub.unibe.ch, thorsten.kiefer@pages.unibe.ch
date: Mon, 24 Oct 2005 05:53:43 -0700
from: Andrew Weaver <weaver@uvic.ca>
subject: Re: PAGES/CLIVAR workshop
to: Eystein Jansen <Eystein.Jansen@geo.uib.no>, Christoph Kull <christoph.kull@pages.unibe.ch>

Seems like an excellent and creative idea!

Cheers andrew


> Hi,
> this seems very good to me. Since Phil has this
> contact I am sure there are no hidden strings
> associated.
> 
> Eystein
> 
> 
> At 11:12 +0200 24-10-05, Christoph Kull wrote:
>> Dear Andrew, dear Eystein,
>> While organizing the planned PAGES/CLIVAR workshop on past millennia
>> variability we asked CLIVAR to financially contribute in a similar way as
>> already approved by PAGES (10k). Unfortunately, CLIVAR's budget situation
>> seems to be quite difficult, and therefore CLIVAR isn't able to provide the
>> expected support. While discussing what to do, Phil Jones brought a
>> possibility up to discussion that seems to be very promising - Thanks a lot
>> Phil!!!
>> 
>> As seen below, EPRI ( Electric Power Research Institute) could become a
>> co-organizer. This looks like a really good idea to proceed with the
>> organization of this event! We therefore would like to inform you about the
>> development and would like to get some feedback from you as PAGES/CLIVAR
>> foci leaders in order to afterwards proceed with the event organization.
>> See the emails below for further information on the planned / suggested EPRI
>> involvement.
>> 
>> Please let me know by Wednesday your comments!
>> 
>> 
>> All the best, thanks a lot!
>> Cheers,
>> Christoph
>> --
>> Christoph Kull
>> Science Officer
>> PAGES IPO
>> Sulgeneckstrasse 38
>> CH-3007 Bern
>> Switzerland
>> 
>> phone: +4131 312 31 53/33
>> fax:   +4131 312 31 68
>> 
>> ------ Forwarded Message
>>>  From: "Williams, Larry" <LJWILLIA@epri.com>
>>>  Date: Wed, 19 Oct 2005 18:47:11 -0700
>>>  To: <p.jones@uea.ac.uk>, <christoph.kull@pages.unibe.ch>,
>>>  <k.briffa@uea.ac.uk>, <mann@psu.edu>, <wanner@giub.unibe.ch>,
>>>  <thorsten.kiefer@pages.unibe.ch>
>>>  Cc: <jsmith@stratusconsulting.com>
>>>  Subject: FW: PAGES/CLIVAR workshop
>>> 
>>>  Gentlemen:
>>> 
>>>  It seems a happy coincidence has happened. With Joel Smith's help I have
>>>  been searching for many months for a way support a workshop on climate
>>>  variability. Armed with sufficient budget I have been somewhat surprised
>>>  at the difficulty of finding scientific talent willing to take on this
>>>  task. The main problem has been that there are two significant efforts
>>>  going on in this area that have the experts fully engaged. Between the
>>>  Fourth Assessment Report of the IPCC and the US Climate Change Science
>>>  Program everyone who could contribute to this type of workshop seems to
>>>  be fully loaded (burnt out?) and not very interested in yet another set
>>>  of meetings.
>>> 
>>>  So when I read over the draft CLIVAR/PAGES Workshop 2006 I was very
>>>  pleased to see an agenda that would fit our needs very well. The general
>>>  scientific thrust outlined in your draft is right on target. The
>>>  additional benefits from our point of view are:
>>>    1. excellent scientific leadership
>>>    2. excellent proposed attendees (I recognize many-not all-names on
>>>  your list)
>>>    3. workshop leading to peer-reviewed paper.
>>>    4. cosponsorship by other funders-not just EPRI providing the budget
>>> 
>>>  The main additional features that I would like to propose would be:
>>>    4. brief report on the workshop (cut and paste from the paper?) with
>>>  an emphasis on creating a list of the most important researchable topics
>>>  needed to advance the field. The main objective of this report and list
>>>  would be to use it as a guide for EPRI  in funding follow-on research in
>>>  this area. We can discuss this further at some later time.
>>>    5. Acknowledgement of Electric Power Research Institute financial
>>>  support in the paper and for the meeting.
>>> 
>>>  Let me give you a brief explanation of why we are interested in
>>>  supporting your workshop.  In the 90's we had a significant component of
>>>  climate change science research that we initiated and supported. We had
>>>  strong involvement with NCAR through our MECCA project, a major carbon
>>>  cycle project (Carbon Cycle Model Linkage Project [CCMLP]-Colin
>>> Prentice, Martin Heiman, Fortunate Joos, and 6 teams of modelers from
>>>  Europe and the US--see Section 3.6 of TAR for CCMLP references), the US
>>>  based ecosystem (VEMAP I and II) project, and many other worthy science
>>>  research efforts. Financial difficulties for the US electric industry
>>>  during this period eroded our science budget and these projects
>>>  gradually came to an end. Things are looking better now and we want to
>>>  get back in the business of supporting excellent climate change science
>>>  research. This workshop could be an entry point for us to a new period
>>>  of support for good science.
>>> 
>>>  Let me know if EPRI support for your workshop seems feasible from your
>>>  point of view. If it does we can discuss the next steps on how to
>>>  proceed.
>>> 
>>>  Best Regards,
>>> 
>>>     Larry Williams
>>> 
>>>  Larry Williams, Ph.D.
>>>  Senior Technical Manager Global Climate
>>>  Electric Power Research Institute
>>>  Office: 650-855-2695
>>>  Fax:     650-855-2950
>>>  ljwillia@epri.com <mailto:ljwillia@epri.com>
>>> 
>>> 
>>> 
>>> 
>>> 
>>>  ________________________________
>>> 
>>>  From: Phil Jones [mailto:p.jones@uea.ac.uk]
>>>  Sent: Wed 10/19/2005 8:13 AM
>>>  To: Joel Smith
>>>  Cc: Christoph Kull; Keith Briffa; Michael E. Mann; Heinz Wanner;
>>>  Thorsten Kiefer
>>>  Subject: Re: PAGES/CLIVAR workshop
>>> 
>>> 
>>> 
>>> 
>>>>   Joel,
>>>         The workshop outline is attached. As I said on the phone, I'll be
>>>    away tomorrow and Friday. PAGES have their support of 10K$ (US)
>>>    for this and were hoping CLIVAR could match this. CLIVAR has
>>>    come back and told us that their budget situation isn't good at the
>>>    moment, and hope for better things later. At the moment
>>>    we are wondering whether we will go ahead with a smaller
>>>    workshop. These type of meetings need to be arranged some
>>>    time in advance because of people's diaries and possible fieldwork
>>>    commitments. The timing next June was to take advantage of
>>>    another meeting in London, so we could get North Americans and
>>>    others slightly cheaper. We also thought the Bernese Oberland in
>>>    June would also tempt people, together with the excellent list of
>>>    people we'd put together.
>>> 
>>>         Only the organizing committee (this email list) know of the
>>>  meeting,
>>>    as we've not approached the majority of the list to check
>>>  availability.
>>> 
>>>       Email Christoph and the others if you're interested. I'm sure
>>>  emphases
>>>    can be changed somewhat, but the main thrust is model/data comparisons
>>>    with respect to past variability. Emphasis would be on temperature,
>>>  but
>>>    we'd also look at variability of features such as ENSO, the NAO etc.
>>>  We've
>>>    all been to many meetings and know that numbers of 20-30 work best,
>>>    along with lots of discussion and relatively few presentations.
>>> 
>>>    Best Regards
>>> 
>>>    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
>>>  ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>>>  ----
>>> 
>>> 
>> 
>> ------ End of Forwarded Message
>> 
>> 
>> Attachment converted: Nebbiolo:P-C-workshop_final 1.doc (WDBN/IC)
>> (0067F418)
> 
> 
> --
> ______________________________________________________________
> Eystein Jansen
> Professor/Director
> Bjerknes Centre for Climate Research and
> Dep. of Earth Science, Univ. of Bergen
> Allgaten 55
> N-5007 Bergen
> NORWAY
> e-mail: eystein.jansen@geo.uib.no
> Phone: +47-55-583491  -  Home: +47-55-910661
> Fax:  +47-55-584330

 

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