date: Fri May 14 14:03:15 2004
from: Mike Hulme <m.hulme@uea.ac.uk>
subject: Fwd: Arctic climate change: seeking contributions to a report
to: nick Brooks <nick.brooks@uea.ac.uk>

   Nick,
   You could perhaps include this as a brief mention in the Annex E - other initiatives on
   dangerous CC research.  WWF are doing this one.
   I have refused the commission - but if you were interested in earning 2,000 let me know.
   Mike

     Date: Thu, 13 May 2004 17:45:32 +0200
     Subject: Arctic climate change: seeking contributions to a report
     From: Lynn Rosentrater <ldr@mac.com>
     To: m.hulme@uea.ac.uk
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     Dear Professor Hulme,
     I am coordinating a project for a large, international NGO and writing to assess your
     interest and availability in a project we are doing on arctic climate change.
     WWF, the conservation organization, is preparing a report on dangerous climate change
     and is looking for a researcher to address the question of how much the arctic region
     would warm if global mean temperature were to increase 2C since pre-industrial times.
     In its simplest form I see this project as a data mining exercise to browse the IPCC
     scenario archives, identify a suite of runs where the globe has warmed on average 2C,
     and then describing the patterns of arctic climate at that point in time.
     We would like to commission you to write a fully referenced paper on this topic. The
     paper should be no longer than 4500 words, include an abstract, an introduction, up to
     six figures or tables, content sections with brief subheadings, and a bibliography.
     Manuscripts in draft form would be due July 15, 2004 and are expected to be in final
     form by September 1, 2004. Contributors will receive an honoraria of 2,000 Euros.
     I have pasted a brief summary of the project at the end of this message. Would you be
     available to contribute to this report? Please let me know of a convenient time to reach
     you by telephone so we might discuss our commission in greater detail. If previous
     commitments prevent you from contributing, I would appreciate your suggestions for other
     researchers who I might approach.
     I look forward to hearing from you.
     Sincerely,
     Lynn Rosentrater, LDR Consulting
     Rdstuveien 6, N-0572 Oslo Norway
     tel: +47 930 93 818
     email: LDR@MAC.COM
     WWF is a global  conservation organization acting locally through a network   of family
     offices. This project is being developed out of WWFs International Arctic Programme in
     Oslo, Norway for WWFs global climate campaign. For more information please visit our web
     sites:
     [1]http://www.ngo.grida.no/wwfap/
     [2]http://www.panda.org/climate/
     About the project
     Evidence and Implications of Dangerous Climate Change in the Arctic:
     The central question behind Article 2 of the United Nations Framework Convention on
     Climate Change (UNFCCC) is what level of climate change should be avoided in order to
     prevent dangerous anthropogenic interference with the climate system. The convention
     specifies that such a level should be achieved within a time-frame sufficient to allow
     ecosystems to adapt naturally to climate change, to ensure that food production is not
     threatened and to enable economic development to proceed in a sustainable manner.
     Dangerous anthropogenic interference can therefore be interpreted as that leading to
     climate change within a time frame insufficient to allow ecosystems or social-economic
     systems to adapt thus leading to significant damage to those systems.
     Several recent studies have shown that global warming is altering the distribution and
     abundance of plant and animal species worldwide. A primary concern for wild species and
     their ecosystems is the rapid rate of both observed and projected changes. Arctic
     ecosystems are strongly constrained by temperature, and are expected to be markedly
     influenced by global warming. In many cases, threshold changes will occur in physical
     systems shifting from permanently frozen to periodically thawed thereby propagating
     ecosystem wide effects.
     Understanding what constitutes dangerous climate change is of increasing importance for
     scientific analysis and policy debate. WWF, the conservation organization, believes that
     in order to avert dangerous climate change, global mean warming should be limited to a
     peak increase of less than 2C above pre-industrial times. Peaking at less than 2C will
     not prevent major damages, but the option of avoiding a 2C increase will disappear
     within the next decade unless urgent action is taken.
     What we're planning:
     WWF would like to create a sense of urgency for its policy work promoting renewable
     energy solutions by assembling a broad array of evidence providing a convincing case of
     dangerous climate change in the Arctic. To that end we seek researchers to tackle the
     following questions:
     1. What does a 2C global target mean for the Arctic in terms of a regional temperature
     increase?
     2. How will sea ice respond to a 2C global increase in temperature?
     3. What are the expected changes in vegetation and ecosystem shifts?
     4. How will the diversity, ranges, and distribution of species be effected by such an
     increase?
     5. What are some of the indigenous perspectives on rising temperatures and dangerous
     climate change?
     Papers and essays addressing these questions will be assembled into a report that will
     be launched at the ACIA International Scientific Symposium Climate Change in the Arctic,
     9-12 November 2004 in Reykjavik, Iceland.
     Information for prospective authors:
     Individual contributions to the report will consist of papers of up to 4500 words
     addressing one of the questions listed above and fully referenced from the peer-reviewed
     press. The papers include an abstract, an introduction, up to six figures or tables,
     content sections with brief subheadings, and a bibliography.  Drafts of the manuscript
     are due July 1, 2004 and are expected to be in final form by September 1, 2004.

