Tuesday 10 December 2013, 6:30-9 PM, San Francisco, GLIMS DINNER NOTES
Tuesday 6:30, Henry's Hunan Restaurant, 110 Natoma St., San Francisco
The scheduling was the best option to avoid several conflicts, but unfortunately we could then not then avoid a big conflict with the Cryosphere Focus Group evening activity, so apologies are extended to those who could not attend the GLIMS dinner, or could not attend the Cryosphere gathering, due to this conflict. Most people arrived at 6:30, and discussion began at 6:45 and lasted 1 hour, with some interruptions to serve appetizers and take dinner orders. Dinner and informal after-dinner discussions then continued until 9 PM.
1. INTRODUCTIONS: GLIMS dinner participants:
Bruce Molnia, Graham Cogley, Bethan Davies, Frank Paul, Bruce Raup, Samuel Nussbaumer, Ohmura Atsumu, Alan Gillespie, Qinghua Ye, Neil Glasser, Umesh Haritashya, Zack Guido, Jeff La Frenierre, Several others
Via skype: Greg Leonard, Roger Wheate
3 minutes.
2. GLIMSbook (Springer/Praxis) Update, 2 minutes: All proof corrections and index terms (preliminary pages, chapters, epilogue) have been delivered to the publisher. INFORMATION ADDED FOLLOWING THE DINNER: The publisher will generate a final proof, which just Kargel and Leonard will review very briefly to make it an expeditious process. The final proofs will be made available to authors as they are received, but there will be no demands on the author teams to review, and no allowance for anything but crucial and simple changes, and it will be a strict 5-day check and approval (including any holidays). The final corrected proofs will be made available by the publisher in batches of 5-10 chapters, and with each batch of chapters, they will be returned to the publisher in no more than 5 days after Greg and I receive them and disseminate to the authors. Ideally, authors will simply archive them for their personal records. If there is some pressing need to validate the final changes made, or offer a final small correction this will be an option—so long as it is done in only 5 days. There should not be a need for this, however. I do not have the publisher's expected schedule of proof completion, but the first batch will likely arrive the last week of December, and the rest during January. From there, I do not know how long publication will take, but it seems that these days it occurs quickly. Guessing: March publication.
3. Push for RCs and others in the cryosphere community to continue submitting analysis results to the GLIMS database. This push will be forthcoming soon. 1 minute.
4. Discussion of a special issue opportunity, 2 minutes: Announcement and discussion of an online NATURE-affiliated special open-access issue of FRONTIERS. The Frontiters publisher was recently acquired by the Nature Publishing Group. Alternatives: THE CRYOSPHERE, and Alan Gillespie suggested JOURNAL OF QUATERNARY RESEARCH (for which he is the senior editor). This publication will not drag on for years (the publication venue fortunately for FRONTIERS has very strict rules-- less than 8 months from proposal acceptance to finish). Solicitation of participation. Solicitation of lead editor. I will gladly serve as a junior editor, but not a lead editor. This opportunity will be discussed further in next couple weeks; GLIMS community input is solicited. Also under discussion is formalization of an annual GLIMS Bulletin, and some interesting possibilities for that are under discussion separately with WGMS. This would be a glitzy showcase well as a digest of achievements.
5. Announcement of advance plans for a GLIMS workshop, 2 minutes. Maybe ca. June 1, 2014? Maybe Stockholm, maybe Alaska, or elsewhere? Maybe focused partly around the GLIMS-EUROPA topic (section 6.2 below), with details of error and uncertainty analysis applied to multitemporal data; and secondly, focused around glacier-climate-human impacts/applications relationships, maybe involving GLIMS-ICEClimB (section 6.3). Gordon Hamilton (who was involved in pre-dinner discussions but was in Maine and could not be at the dinner) has agreed to look into NSF or NASA support for a workshop. More to come about this.
6. Formation of GLIMS working groups, 30 minutes. Ideas below are still in discussion, and solicitation of involvement by the GLIMS community (and others) was announced.
Working Groups:
6.1. Working groups' overarching goal: Improve our understanding of error, precision and uncertainty in glacier measurements, especially of higher-level analysis beyond simple inventories; especially first and second derivatives of multi-temporal data. Improve our confidence in downscaled regional climate models. Do all this in 2 years to be ready to have an improved impact on IPCC AR6.
6.2. GLIMS Working Group on Error and Uncertainty of Results: Origination and Propagation Analysis (GLIMS-EUROPA)
6.2.1. Premises:
A. I have no interest in having working groups that just talk a bit, share papers, maybe issue a white paper, and basically does nothing more. Sharing papers and talking is a crucial start, but we need something concrete achieved early.
B. There should be a concrete, peer-reviewed product—one or more papers, at least one of which is a near-term project (winter 2014).
C. The paper(s) should reach some definite, implementable conclusions (e.g., error analysis protocol or guidelines and explanations backed up by examples).
D. We should consider holding a GLIMS workshop oriented around the topic of uncertainty and error analysis in higher level satellite image analysis and data fusion incorporating dissimilar datasets.
E. The timeframe should be such that an initial peer-reviewed product establishes the reality and functionality of the working group and produces something that is a genuine advance of error assessment protocol. Then there should be other objectives that become a natural progression as different sorts of analysis are considered. It should be clear that this is a group that is ready to tackle many glacier issues head-on for AR6, and we will not be haggling about how to assign errors (or worse, ignoring the issues).
F. We need to establish a functionally sized group (not unwieldily, but having wide experience),establish a working group chair, and then let the group determine its charter and agenda.
6.2.2. Confirmed members or interested people: Mike Demuth, Jeff Kargel, Roberto Furfaro, Greg Leonard, Michael Bishop, Umesh Haritashya, Andy Kääb, Etienne Berthier, Frank Paul, Jeff La Frenierre (in no particular order)
Additional anticipated members: Bruce Raup, Graham Cogley, and maybe Tobias Bolch (I hope)
6.2.3. Structure of GLIMS-EUROPA
1. Multispectral and thermal image subgroup
a. Material Boundaries including glacier boundaries (Mike Demuth + Bruce Raup + Jeff Kargel + Greg Leonard, Frank Paul, Antoinne Rabatel, others)
i. Single time snapshot
ii. Multitemporal, same sensor
iii. Multitemporal, different sensors
b. Surface motion (Andy Kääb, Umesh Haritashya)
i. Multitemporal, same sensor
ii. Multitemporal, different sensors
c. Surface properties (Jeff Kargel, Roberto Furfaro, Greg Leonard, Michael Bishop, others)
i. Snow and ice grain size
ii. Debris cover
iii. Water
iv. Morphology
2. DEM subgroup—Etienne Berthier, Antoinne Rabatel, Greg Leonard, Jeff Kargel, others
a. Single snapshot, satellite system
b. Multitemporal, same system
c. Multitemporal, different satellite systems
d. Multitemporal, satellite + conventional map
6.2.4. Dinner group's response: This task was well received. It is recognized that the Randolph Inventory—though critically needed for its urgent propose vis a vis the IPCC AR5, does not adhere uniformly to quality standards that are high enough whereby a future inventory done to similar specifications would uncover reliable evidence of glacier changes. Whereas the RGI and GLIMS inventories must be filled in to get the first totally global snapshot of glacier distributions and glacier area, there is a need to establish tighter and more uniform standards and understanding regarding tracking (and minimization) of errors and uncertainties. There already has been considerable effort directed toward this task (evident in several chapters in the GLIMS book and other publications, including one by Frank Paul and others, 2013, On the Accuracy of glacier outlines derived from remote-sensing data, Annals of Glaciology 54,171-182). These existing efforts and achievements need to be pulled together, and then we will go from there. Other indications of interest have been already received from the cryosphere community aside from those present at the dinner.
6.3. GLIMS Working Group on Ice-Covered Earth's Climate Base (GLIMS-ICEClimB)
6.3.1. Membership: Alan Gillespie + Andy Bush + Others
Perhaps the same premises as above for GLIMS-EUROPA apply here, too.
6.3.2. GLIMS-ICEClimB structure/tasks/subgroups:
6.3.2.1. Weather/climate station task. ALAN GILLESPIE: Promotion of weather station emplacement, and a standard GLIMS protocol for the instrumentation and emplacement strategy. Dozens of glaciers that are not already benchmark glaciers, or benchmark glaciers if there is not already weather monitoring below, near and above the ELA. They should include some of the same glaciers used for Mission #2 (below). The weather stations can include complete AWS, but to make it practical for large numbers of glaciers it should include some basic low-cost weather data recorders, maybe some that can be thrown out of a helicopter?
6.3.2.2. Downscale modeling task. ANDY BUSH: Development of a uniform regional climate downscaling program to cover dozens of glaciers—benchmark glaciers and others that are the subject of Mission #1. 6-km downscale resolution is implementable without problem using the WRF code (Andy Bush). Other RCM codes? But whatever code(s) are used, it should be applied systematically with the same downscale architecture, same climate emissions scenario(s), same past/present/future dates of model computation, uniform in every way so that the results are directly comparable across the globe.
6.3.3. Dinner group's response, and further information: There is a need for a clearing house of who is already doing what (or planning weather stations) and documenting where exactly station data are being collected, and establishing a standard protocol that is oriented specifically toward glaciers. Alan Gillespie has a big start on this task and has agreed to lead it or otherwise help develop its charter and push it forward. We will hear more soon about this. Interested prospective participants should contact Alan (arg3@u.washington.edu) and Cc Jeff (jeffreyskargel@hotmail.com). The climate downscaling task—particularly the directive to create a more homogenous and more glacier-oriented downscaling task was also well received. Frank Paul thought that this might best be done as a WMO activity, since they are already doing similar things for partially similar reasons, but maybe not specifically targeting glaciers. Andy Bush (who was not at the dinner due to a competing birthday celebration, but he was consulted extensively before and after the dinner) sees the merit of the idea and presumably would take some significant role in helping to achieve this task's objectives. Frank Paul recommended that Andy contact WMO about this.
