[GLIMS] GLIMS Update: GLIMS dinner discussion, Notes

Fri Dec 13 12:51:46 MST 2013

Dear GLIMS colleagues:Attached are notes from the GLIMS dinner and some follow-up.  Sorry for double-posting to many people, but it seems that the thrust for a "GLIMS2", partly reflected here, is important enough to make sure relevant people are not accidentally excluded. Sorry for it's length, but a lot of ground was covered.--Jeff Kargel
Jeffrey S. Kargel
Department of Hydrology & Water ResourcesUniversity of ArizonaTucson, AZ 85742  USAEmail(1) jeffreyskargel at hotmail.comEmail(2) kargel at hwr.arizona.eduMobile phone: 520-780-7759www.glims.org

Tuesday 10 December 2013, 6:30-9 PM,  San Francisco, GLIMS DINNER NOTESTuesday
6:30, Henry’s Hunan Restaurant, 110 Natoma St., San FranciscoThe
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
othersVia
skype: Greg Leonard, Roger Wheate3
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-EUROPA1.    
Multispectral
and thermal image subgroupa.     Material Boundaries including glacier
boundaries (Mike Demuth + Bruce Raup + Jeff Kargel + Greg Leonard, Frank Paul, Antoinne
Rabatel, others)i.              
Single
time snapshotii.             
Multitemporal,
same sensoriii.           
Multitemporal,
different sensorsb.     Surface motion (Andy Kääb, Umesh
Haritashya)i.              
Multitemporal,
same sensorii.             
Multitemporal,
different sensorsc.     Surface properties  (Jeff Kargel, Roberto Furfaro, Greg Leonard,
Michael Bishop, others)i.              
Snow
and ice grain sizeii.             
Debris
coveriii.           
Wateriv.           
Morphology2.    
DEM
subgroup—Etienne Berthier, Antoinne Rabatel, Greg Leonard, Jeff Kargel, othersa.     Single snapshot, satellite systemb.     Multitemporal, same systemc.     Multitemporal, different satellite
systemsd.     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 + OthersPerhaps 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 at u.washington.edu) and Cc Jeff (jeffreyskargel at 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.

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <https://nsidc.org/pipermail/glims/attachments/20131213/becbb9d0/attachment.html>