date: Thu, 13 Aug 1998 17:08:04 +0100 ()
from: Andy Baker <A.Baker@exeter.ac.uk>
subject: stalagmite and tree ring high resolution holocene palaeoclimate 
to: k.briffa@uea.ac.uk

Dear Keith,

You may remember that we met and spoke some years ago at 
the NERC Town Meeting on Palaeoclimate, where I was 
advocating the posibilities of high resolution stalagmite 
records from luminescence variations. You expressed some 
interest at the time in doing some collaborative work. Of 
course that was about 4 years ago now!

I am now nearing the end of a 2 year NERC funded project to 
investigate the potential of stalagmite luminescence 
laminations as a palaeoclimate proxy. We have at present a 
1000 year continuous annual record from NW Scotland, which 
demonstrates good correlations with both historical 
climate data and other expected longer term trends (e.g 
double Little Ice Age). We are hoping to get an extension 
to extend this record back to 4000 years (we have three 
triplicate stals, but not the man-time!).

Would you be interested in some joint work. For our 
1000 year record, annual stalagmite growth rate seems to be 
a complex proxy of T/Pptn (based on calibration against 
the historical record) and is the weakest of our proxies. 
Winter band structure gives a good record of winter 
storminess and is much clearer as a proxy. 

Do you have / know of any tree ring records that could be 
useful? Our stals are from Inchnadamph, Assynt, NW 
Scotland (nearest met. station - Stornoway). Given the 
uniqueness of the regions rainfall record compared to the 
rest of the UK/Ireland, and the fact that we seem to be 
getting a winter rainfall signal, suggests (at least to me 
as a non-expert) that comparison to tree-ring records from 
outside the region may not be too useful. But if you have 
records from the region, then we may be able to construct a 
better palaeoclimate proxy using the two records together??

Please let me know if you would be interested in pursuing 
this further.


Yours

Andy

ps If replying after 1.9.98, I will be at Newcastle 
University, so please mail me there. Should be something 
obvious - try andy.baker@ncl.ac.uk or a.baker@ncl.ac.uk

pps have greatly enjoyed your recent publications, and 
would value any offprints if you have spares.

----------------------
Andy Baker
University of Exeter


