In this Issue:

Upcoming Workshops and Conferences

• The Eighth Workshop on Decadal Climate Variability; Decadal Climate Predictability and Prediction: Where Are We?
  12 - 15 Oct 2009
  more details...

CRCES-IPRC Workshop on Decadal Climate Variability

DecVar Highlight

Recently Submitted Papers

Recent Publications on Decadal Variability

• DecVar Bibliography

Back Issues

• Vol. 1
• Vol. 2.1
• Vol. 2.2

The CRCES-IPRC Workshop on Decadal Climate Variability

Student Perspectives

Anthony Arguez

In this brief article I give a general overview of my experience at the workshop. As a graduate student, I not only learned a great deal about the scientific aspect of our sub-discipline, but also about the organizational structures of relevant agencies and the influence of our field on policymaking. I was impressed with the level of the scientific dialogue, as well as the diversity of topics that were covered. Particularly intriguing were the civil, yet contentious disagreements over statistical interpretations (i.e. hyping results), the relative importance of the atmosphere and ocean in decadal variability, and the ever-present issue of global warming. The most informative talk I attended was Richard Ray’s discussion on tides and decadal variability since, as a meteorologist, my knowledge of oceanic tides is limited. In addition, the vast array of statistical techniques utilized at the workshop inspired me to learn several that I did not know, and gave me leads on new ideas.

In addition to being a spectator at the workshop, I was given the opportunity to present a talk entitled "The Relationship between Low- frequency North Atlantic Sea Surface Temperatures and Surface Temperatures over Eastern North America and Europe". I received a pair of thought- provoking questions. First, I was queried on my treatment of ice values in the SST data set I used. The Hadley Centre Global Sea Ice and Sea Surface Temperature data product set all monthly values in which ice was present anywhere in each grid box as –1.8 oC, which is a reasonable lower limit of SST considering the freezing point depression of water given typical ocean salinities. The sea ice values were retained in the EOF analysis I conducted. Treating the grid boxes where sea ice ever occurred over the record as missing values did not affect the results in any appreciable way. A second inquiry involved the lag correlations of the second and third PC time series of SST. Although the two series had similar spectral characteristics and imparted comparable land temperature deviations, no evidence that modes 2 and 3 comprise a propagating mode is found in the lag correlations. However, mode splitting and the decomposition of propagating modes are indeed general drawbacks of the stationary EOF method. Using advanced EOF techniques may provide a more useful interpretation of our problem. Having made improvements to my manuscript based on these questions, I thank the two questioners for calling these matters to my attention.

All in all, I feel that attending the workshop was a rewarding experience for me. From presenting my work, to being able to interact with more established scientists in the field, the workshop was an opportunity to step out of the books and into the field. I am grateful for the workshop’s tradition of providing travel grants to young scientists, and I encourage young scientists to attend these rewarding events in the future.

Juergen Bader

I have written down some points about my subjective experiences at the "Decadal climate variability" workshop on Hawaii.

• The workshop was well organized and the program well structured.
• To give the presenters 30 minutes time for their oral presentation was a good idea. So a lot of topics could be explained in more depth.
• Normally, I don't like poster sessions so much. But at this workshop it was different. Since there were no overlapping with the poster presentation there was a good attendance of the poster session. This was in clear contrast to my former experiences - especially at big conferences. Often poster presentations and talks are parallel, so that a lot of people decide to go to the talks and not to attend the poster sessions. The good attendance of the poster session made it possible to discuss results and to exchange ideas with a lot of colleagues. Concerning my own poster presentation I got some new helpful suggestions.
• At the conference a lot of aspects of decadal climate variability have been addressed. Especially, I enjoyed the clear and concrete presentations of the societal impacts of decadal climate variability. Also my knowledge and understanding of the Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO) was enhanced.
• I personally would have appreciated it if there had been more presentations concerning the variability of the Atlantic thermohaline circulation and the predictability of decadal fluctuations - but of course this depends on the interests of the attending participants.
• I think travel grants for young scientists are very helpful and important.

First, writing the review - to take part in the travel grant competition - enhances the understanding of the chosen topic and in a lot of cases it is the only possibility for young scientists to attend a conference or workshop, which gives the opportunity to discuss results with other scientists. So thank you very much for the travel grant.

Because of this I found it extremely disappointing that not all young scientists who won a travel grant could attend the conference because of visa problems.

Holger Pohlmann

The students travel grant provided by the organizers of the CRCES-IPRC Workshop on Decadal Climate Variability gave me the opportunity to participate in this international scientific assembly. It was a nice experience to write a review paper as part of the students contest to get the grant. Performing the review paper on decadal to multidecadal climate predictability enhanced my knowledge in this certain aspect of climate research. At the workshop we got a cordial welcome with the typical Hawaiian flower chain. The workshop was held in one of the most beautiful places of the world. It was very well organized and the program was well structured. The program included aspects of societal impacts and predictability, observations, and processes of decadal climate variability. During the poster session and the ice breaker the possibility was given to meet scientists from all over the world. I enjoyed the discussion sessions in the afternoons very much, where questions on decadal climate variability were addressed. Thanks again to the organizers for their engagement leading to the successful workshop. I am looking forward to the next workshop on decadal climate variability!

Sara Purca

Meetings in small groups, like the workshop organized by CRCES-IPRC, are incentive to participation; this made the workshop very interesting. There was alot of interaction among the panelists. The discussion about main ideas in the morning led to good discussion themes for the afternoon. However, there was too much emphasis on themes that were not necessarily of interest to the audience, i.e. social issues and paleoceanographic reconstruction data. It is difficult for a student to capture good ideas or decide on a topic for his/her investigation in workshops that are heterogeneous. This workshop focused on issues very specifically related to the atmospheric and oceanic variables in Tropical Decadal Variability.

Jorge Sanchez-Sesma

It was a pleasure to participate in the Workshop held in Kona Hawaii last February. It was an extraordinary experience in several aspects: scientific, social and cultural. It was not only a great opportunity to present my results about global temperature reconstruction for the last millenium, but also, it helped me to meet the most important scientists on my field, from US and Europe who are leaders in this subject. With their comments and results, I have found limits and potentials for my work. All these experiences motivated me and gave me more elements to improve my results and knowledge about global paleoclimate. During the workshop I met several people from different institutions who work in NCAR, CRCES, NOAA, CLIVAR, PAGES, and NASA, with whom I shared experiences in an international and multicultural ambient which was very interesting and fruitful. Finally an excursion around the Big island (or the Big Volcano) was a very nice experience. Taking into account all these fundamental ingredients of the meeting, this workshop represented my best scientific experience.