22/01/2007

170th CSO meeting, 12-13 March, belgrade

Request for participation of institutions from non-COST countries

COST Action ES0601: Advances in homogenisation methods of climate series: an integrated approach (HOME)

We, carine petit, COST Office Science Officer and olivier mestre, Action Chair, acknowledge good receipt of the motivation letter from the applying Institution and provide it as an accompanying supporting document to this official request.

1. Management Committee and DC Approvals

The COST Action ES0601 Management Committee approved by e-mail vote on date, the request for a non-COST country participation, based on scientific merits.

Name of Institution from non-COST country

NAME / CENMA/IEA – Centre d’Estudis de la Neu I la Muntanya d’Andorra / Andorran Research Institute
ADDRESS / Av. Rocafort 21-23, Edifici Molí 3r pis
AD600 Sant Julià de Lòria
COUNTRY
+ ISO COUNTRY CODE / Principality of Andorra
AD
Telephone - FAX / 00376 742 630 - 00376 843 585
e-mail /
WEBSITE / http://www.cenma.ad

Name of representative to COST Action ES0601

NAME / PERE ESTEBAN
ADDRESS / Av. Rocafort 21-23, Edifici Molí 3r pis
AD600 Sant Julià de Lòria
COUNTRY
+ ISO COUNTRY CODE / Principality of Andorra
AD
Telephone - FAX / 00376 742 639 - 00376 843 585
e-mail /
personal WEBSITE

This request was reviewed by the members of the ESSEM Domain Committee on date and recommended based on the scientific merits, for CSO approval.

Action end date: dd/mm /yyyy


2. PRESENTATION OF NON-COST COUNTRY INSTITUTION AND ITS REPRESENTATIVE

The CENMA is a research center of the Andorran government. Since a general point of view, the study of the environment is the main objective of the center. In this way, the research of the climatology of Andorra is one the most important areas. Pere Esteban is the climatologist of the center, and actually is working on the new meteorological network of Andorra and the generation of the metadatas of the long meteorological series of Andorra.

3. BACKGROUND INFORMATION

Pere Esteban is a climatologist from the University of Barcelona and with experience on digitization and homogenization of data (IMPROVE project: Improved Understanding of Past Climatic Variability from Early Daily European Instrumental Sources ENV4-CT97-0511, 1998-2000). Is also researcher on classification methods (participating at the Action COST 733) and mountain climatology, with publications as ESTEBAN, P.; JONES, P.D.; MARTIN-VIDE, J. and MASES, M. (2005): "Atmospheric circulation patterns related to heavy snowfalls days in Andorra, Pyrenees" International Journal of Climatology, 25, 319-329.

4. DESCRIPTION OF MUTUAL BENEFITS

4.1 Benefits for COST and for the COST Action

The Principality of Andorra, a country located in the Pyrenees, has long series (since 1934) at daily resolution that could be very interesting for testing homogenization methods. These stations are neighbouring Catalan and French data that has been pre-selected during the last management committee to integrate the benchmark dataset. Andorran data could complement them and help to constitute a multi-country dataset. On the other hand, these series are one of the few examples of weather observations in a mountainous environment over southwestern Europe (two of them are at 1640 m), something very useful for evaluating the capability of application over mountainous areas of the methods to be analysed in this COST action.

The action will also benefit from the incorporation of new active members, willing to invest time in the development of the Working Groups tasks.

Finally, as stated in item 4.2, the CENMA is willing to adopt the approach arising from the COST action HOME to homogenise their meteorological series.

4.2 Benefits for the Non-COST Country Institution

The existence of this series since 1934 is a very useful information to investigate climate change over Andorra, an also over the Pyrenees and the mountain environments. Nowadays, the data must be corrected for obtaining any conclusions in this topic. In this way, Andorra could learn and apply the methods derived from a the COST action HOME, and correct the Andorran meteorological series and advance on the study of climate variability.

4.3. Brief description of targeted scientific activities, including Working Groups selected for cooperation

The CENMA pursues two different goals in joining COST HOME action. The first one is to engage in the experiments conducted by the working groups (with special interest in WG2, WG3 and WG4) and cooperate in the successful development of the action.

A second objective – derived from the first one – is to produce, after HOME recommendations a new homogenized data set for our country, Andorra.

There is already a work in progress, related to these goals, in contact with the action Chair, Olivier Mestre, with WG1 leader Enric Aguilar and with Marc Prohom (Catalan Meteorological Service).

Together with them, we’re conducting an experiment, which consists in the application of different homogenization methods to daily temperatures from Southern France, Andorra, and Catalonia.

5. ADDITIONAL COMMENTS / REMARKS (including IPR if needed)

The participant from a non-COST institution, as in the case of the scientists representing the Principality of Andorra, will not be eligible for reimbursement except under the condition that the scientist has been formally invited as “invited expert” for a scientific meeting.