IGCP428, annual report 98

From: "Vladimir Cermak" 
Date:          Thu, 29 Oct 1998 13:44:51 MET
Subject:       IGCP428, annual report 98

International Geological Correlation Program
Project No. 428 "Borehole and Climate"

Circular Letter No.4
				 October 27, 1998


Dear IGCP 428 participants,


enclosed I am sending you the copy of the Annual Report of the
IGCP 428 project for year 1998 as was submitted to the UNESCO
Secretariat (IGCP Scientific Board had decided to report on
periods starting and ending by October 15th each year). As our
project is a new one, first assessment of our project will be
only at the end of the 2nd year, i.e. in 1999.

You will see that in 1998 we had the first (inaugural) project
meeting as a part of the Conference in Moscow in May, and we are
still planning to have a western hemisphere discussion meeting
during the AGU Fall Meeting at San Francisco, December 1998.

For the 1999 year there will be two opportunities to meet : (a)
on a Workshop "Past Climate Change Inferred from the Analyses of
the Underground Temperature Field", Sinaia (Romania), March
14-17, 1999, and (b) during the General Assembly of the IUGG at
Birmingham, UK, 19-30% July 1999.

The Invitation and Call for Contributions for the Romanian
meeting has been just distributed by Dr.Serban Veliciu, the
principal convener of the Workshop. For information see either
the www pages of the IHFC or contact
Dr.Veliciu (veliciu@sfos.igr.ro), fax +40-1-2240404. For better
planning your interest should be expressed as soon as possible.
The details of our meeting during the IUGG will be given only
later.

There will be certain limited amount of money (hopefully similar
to USD 7000.- as this year) which can be used to contribute to
the participation expenses of some speakers on either meeting,
with preference to help the participation of colleagues from the
develloping countries. Please, understand that in no case the
full coverage of travel expenses will be possible. Active
participation in the project with good scientific results is
essential for granting. Application should be directed to me as
soon as possible.

We have to prepare the text describing our project and its
achievements which is to appear in Geological Correlation No.27.
The dead-line is March 31, 1999. For preparation of this document
I would appreciate to have your contributions by the end of
January at the latest, emphasizing concrete scientific results
and giving the list of publications which have resulted from the
IGCP 428 project (please, remember that the corresponding note in
the acknoledgement is important). For this list of relevant
publication I need your response earlier by the end of 1998, this
list is to be presented on the next IGCP Scientific Board
meeting, February 1-4, 1999.

Thank you for your consideration and active cooperation

Sincerely Yours


			   Vladimir Cermak
			   for the IGCP 428 project leaders



--------------------- report text follows ------------------------

International Geological Correlation Programme (IGCP)

Annual Report

Project : IGCP Project no.428 : Climate and Boreholes
Status : New
Year : 1998
______________________________________________________

1. Major past achievements of the Project :  N.A. (not 
applicable)

2. Achievements of the project in 1998 :
2.1 General scientific achievements (including social benefits)

Year 1998 is the first year of the project which started in
March 1998. During the preparation period a number of scientists
from various countries were contacted and asked to join the
project. Altogether 54 individuals from 50 research institutions
and/or university departments from 36 countries of all continents
had expresed their interest and became the project participants,
several more colleagues joint the project later on during this
year. The major effort in 1998 concerned on creating
a representative group of specialists interested to conduct the
corresponding studies in their respective countries. Basic ideas
how to understand the scientific background of the problem and
how to practically extract the climate signal recorded in the
subsurface temperature field were dissiminated and discussed.

The proposed cooperation is aimed on incorporating the
geothermal method to reconstruct the past climate by the
inversion of the present-day temperature logs in boreholes to the
existing instrumental techniques and proxy data to further
contribute to better knowledge of the general scenario of climate
changes, notably to assess the magnitude of the recent climate
warming with a quantitative evaluation of the role of the natural
and anthropogenic climate forcing. Such cooperation may also well
help educate few individuals in developing countries to obtain
skills in the geothermics in general.

As most of the work programme depends on the national
research funds the participation in the project is believed to
serve as an "umbrella" for obtaining the necessary funding by
various national govermental organizations and/or grant agencies.
Several nation-scale linking grant projects have been actually
initiated.

2.2 List of 1998 meetings with approximate attendance and
number of countries :

The fourth Russian annual conference on The Earth|s Thermal
Field and Related Research Methods, Moscow, May 19-21, 1998 was
chosen as an inaugural meeting of the project for 1998. The
meeting was well attended by about 25 foreign participants from
Europe and North America plus more than 80 from Russia and FSU.
As such it gave a very good opportunity for Russians (who not
always can participate on the international meetings) to meet
with foreign colleagues and present their results. Altogether 51
oral presentations and 73 posters were delivered demonstrating
the state-of-art of present geothermics. Most of the attendees
from abroad were actually participating in the IGCP project, as
well as a sizeable group of colleagues from Russia. In addition
to the general information followed by discussion on the project
428, the part of the meeting was allocated for the practical
exchange of ideas on various problems of temperature measurements
in boreholes, the inversion of T(z) into the ground surface
temperature history and use of geothermal data in climate
reconstruction. Ten oral presentations and three posters
specialized on this topic were presented. From the IGCP funds the
amount of USD 5200.- was used to contribute to the travel
expenses of six selected conference participants : Demezhko
D.Yu. (USD 500,-), Dorofeva, R. (USD 500.-), Zui, V.I. (USD
500), Kutasov, I.M. (USD 1000), Majorowicz, J. (USD 1000.) and
Pollack, H.N. (USD 1200) plus USD 500.- for the project
organization expenses.

To spend the remaining USD 1800.- from the project funds
allocated for 1998 a proposal was submitted to the IGCP
Secretariat to contribute to the travel expenses of V.Cermak and
O.A.Anisimov to attend the AGU Fall Meeting at San Francisco,
December 1998 to present their contributions on the special
symposium addressing the geothermal method of recent climate
change reconstruction. The AGU Fall Meeting is a unigue
opportunity to convene a western hemisphere project discussions
group meeting, which has been actually called to by H.N.Pollack.


2.3 List of most important publications :

The material presented at the Conference at Moscow was
published in the form of Extended abstracts in a special
publication. All recepients of the IGCP support gave their
written statement to prepare their contribution as a scientific
paper to an international journal. It is expected to gather these
material and publish it as a block in e.g. Global and Planetary
Change journal with promised submission by the end of 1998.

These publications include :

Demezhko, D.D., Schapov, V.A. and Yurkov, A.K., "Paleoclimate
reconstruction in the Urals inferred temperature measurements in
deep hole SG-4"
Dorofeeva R. and Shen, P.Y., ."Using of geothermal data for
GSTH-reconstructions in South East Siberia and Mongolia"
Zui V.I., "Climate change in Belarus inferred from borehole
termograms"
Pollack H.N. and Huang S., "Climate reconstruction from
subsurface temperatures: a global perspective"
Kutasov I. M., "Utilization of temperature surveys for
determination formations temperatures and geothermal gradients".
Majorowicz, J. Safanda, J. and Skinner, W., "Differences between
ground and surface air warming in northern parts of North
America"

The titles of proposed presentations (sponsored by the IGCP
428) for the AGU Fall Meeting are

Cermak, V., Safanda, J. and Bodri. L., "Borehole temperature,
Global warming and land development",
Anisimov, O.A., and Polyakov, V.Yu., Predicting anthropogenic
climate change at permafrost regions using modsern trends of the
air temperature".

Other presentations addressing the IGCP 428 topics and
arranged in the T12A symposium of the AGU Fall Meeting include :

Pollack, H N, Huang, S. Climate Change Revealed by Subsurface
Temperatures: A Global.....
Clow, G D. Reconstructing Past Climatic Changes in Greenland
and... Canada's Deep Permafrost Taylor, A.Temperatures and the
Research Inspiration of...
Allard, M. Ice Wedge Activity and Climate Changes During the
Recent Holocene Near......
Clow, G D. Arctic Alaska Climate Change Estimated from Borehole
Temperatures: Past,...
Osterkamp, T E. A History of Continuous Permafrost Conditions in
Northern Alaska...
Plug, L J. Response of Fracture Networks in Frozen Ground to
Changing Climate...
Chapman, D.S. Borehole Temperatures, Meteorological Data, and
Climate Change: the Utah...
Overpeck, J T How unprecedented is recent Arctic warming: a look
back to the Medieval...
Riseborough, D. Seasonal Ground Surface Temperatures Beneath
Snowcover: Six Processes in...
Smith, S L.An Approach to Mapping the Sensitivity of Permafrost
in Canada to...
Beltrami, H..Experimental Air/Ground Climate Observatory in
Pomquet, Nova Scotia,...
Mareschal, J. Postglacial warming recorded in a temperature
profile near Sept-Iles,...
Taniguchi, M.Evaluations of Surface Climate Change and
Subsurface Water Flow From...
Harris, R N.Borehole Temperature and Meteorological Data in the
San Francisco Bay...
Schmidt, W L.Gosnold, W.D. Modeling the Thermal Effects of
Ground Freezing in North Dakota..
Zhang, T Toward a Better Understanding of the Response of
Permafrost...
Brown, J. and Haeberli, Towards an International Permafrost
Monitoring Network and Service...


2.4 List of countries actively involved in the project :

Most of the activity focussed on collecting corresponding
temperature-depth records suitable for inversion into the ground
surface temperature history as well as on the regular monitoring
temperature variations in a few selected boreholes drilled for
this purpose to study the mechanism of penetrating temperature
signal to the underground and to understand the air-soil
temperature coupling.
Countries cooperating on this field : Albania, Belarus,
Bulgaria, Canada, China, Czech Republic, Estonia, Finland,
Germany, Hungary, Israel, Italia, Portugal, Romania, Russia,
Slovenia, Turkey, USA.

2.5 Activities involving other IGCP project or the IUGS :

N.A.

2.6 Participation of scientists from developing countries :

To obtain cooperation with the developing countries effort
concentrated on finding interested colleagues from in several
African and South American countries to join the project by
providing suitable temperature logs which can be inverted :
namely Algeria (Dr.Kedaid Fatima Zohra), Egypt (Drs.Gad El-Quady
and A.M.Abbas), Marocco (Dr.Abdelkrim Rimi), Congo Dem.Rep.of
(Prof.N.M.Sebagenzi ?), China (Dr.N.Fang), South America
(Prof.V.Hamza), Turkey (Drs.T.Tokgoz and C.Sener), Macedonia
(Drs.N.St olic and K.Petrovski). So far, not much has been done
in this respect and hopefully more intensive cooperation can be
expected in 1999. Software programme for temperature inversion is
available on request.

3. Proposed activities of the project for year 1999
3.1 General goals :

To continue according to the tentative working plan submitted
together with the project proposal , i.e.

Improvement of already existing and establishment of new close
relations with other paleoclimatologists and exchange of data and
experinece. Cross-correlation of various proxy records with
instrumental data. Assess the strengths and weeknesses of proxies
as estimators of past climate variability.
Correlation studies of obtained recent ground surface temperature
histories GSTHs (climate warming) with the long-term
meteorological series.
Demonstration of several successful cases so far done to show the
feasibility as well as the limitation of the method.
Unification and reliability assessment of logging techniques
To continue in collecting all suitable temperature-depth profiles
and their inversion into ground surface temperature histories,
special attention to be paid to obtain temperature-versus-depth
records from so far "uncovered" areas and from the developping
countries.
Establishment of several regional databases of GSTHs.

3.2 Specific meetings and field trips (with participation from
developing countries):

a) Special Workshop on "Past Climate Change Inferred from the
Analyzes of the Underground Temperature Field" is planned as the
official 1999 IGCP 428 project meeting is planned to be organized
by Dr.S.Veliciu (Roumania) in Sinai, March 14-17, 1999 (specially
focused on cooperation with colleagues from souther and eastern
Europe and the Mediterranean) - see first circular letter in
enclosure.

b) Project Working Group Meeting is also planned to be held
during the 22.IUGG General Assembly at Birmingham, July 19-30,
1999 as a part of the IHFC programme together with specialized
scientific symposium.

4. Project funding requested :

To ensure representative participation from as many countries
as possible (including a few representatives of the developing
countries) depends on the funds available. The (maximum)
reasonable funding from the IGCP/UNESCO will be appreciated.

5. Request for extension, on-extended-term-status, or
intention to propose successor project :

N.A.

6. Attachments :

copy of the First Circular Letter: Invitation to the 1999
Workshop



Praha, Czech Republic, October 13, 1998



			    Vladimir Cermak
			    IGCP 428 Project Leader

------------------  end of attached text  ------------------------

Vladimir Cermak
Geophysical Institute, Czech Acad.Sci.
141-31 Praha 4
phone +420-2-764539
fax +420-2-71761549 NEW!!!