The term "downscaling" and the first examples of using the statistical variant of this approach for the construction of climate change scenarios.
The term "downscaling" was first used in the MPI Report #64 - Hans von Storch, Eduardo Zorita, Ulrich Cubasch (1991): Downscaling of Global Climate Change Estimates to Regional Scales: An Application to Iberian Rainfall in Wintertime. This approach was developped out of a request for elaborating the utility of GCM output, asked by a group of German hydrologists - the details of the meeting is by now forgotten.
Inspired by Kim, J.W., J.-T. Chang, N.L. Baker, D.S. Wilks and W.L. Gates, 1984: The statistical problem of climate inversion: Determination of the relationship between local and large-scale climate. Mon. Wea. Rev. 112: 2069-2077, Hans von Storch and Eduardo Zorita applied Canonical Correlation Analysis to derive Iberian Peninsula seasonal rainfall change in winter from global GCM scenarios.
The method and analysis was finally published first in Spain and then in Journal of Climate:
Zorita, E. and H.von Storch, 1991: Estimacion de cambios en la precipitacion en la Peninsula Iberica a partir de experimentos con modelos de circulacion general. In "Modelos en Meteorologia y Climatologia", Universidad Complutense, Madrid
von Storch, H., E. Zorita and U. Cubasch, 1993: Downscaling of global climate change estimates to regional scales: An application to Iberian rainfall in wintertime. - J. Climate 6: 1161-1171 - the MPI report #64 mentioned above was the preprint of this article.
The spectral nudging technique used in, mainly, reconstructing regional climate extending decades of years but also for scenario construction.
The problem of simulating the regional climate conditional upon the large scale state of a re-analysis or a GCM simulation is no longer formulated as a boundary-value problem but as a data-driven problem, with the known large-scale conditioning the medium- and small scale dynamics. In doing so, it becomes also clear that the expected value added is not in the large scales, which are already described by the global model/analysis but in those scales, which are insufficiently resolved by the global analysis/model.
von Storch, H., H. Langenberg and F. Feser, 2000: A spectral nudging technique for dynamical downscaling purposes. Mon. Wea. Rev. 128: 3664-3673.
Preliminary "grey" versions were
Langenberg, H, and H. von Storch, 1999: Spectral analysis in regionalisation retaining the large scales but adding detail. In H. Ritchie (Ed.): Research Activities in Atmospheric and Oceanic Modelling, WMO/TD No 942, 7.31-32
and von Storch, H., H. Langenberg and F. Feser, 1999: Long-wave forcing for regional atmospheric modelling. GKSS 99/E/46 report
That the scheme actually is superior than in the conventional formulation in generating mesoscale variability in a correctly described large scale dynamical environment has been demonstrated by a series of authors, in particular Frauke Feser, 2006: Enhanced detectability of added value in limited area model results separated into different spatial scales. Mon. Wea. Rev. 134(8), 2180-2190. Aso an improved description of the formation of North Atlantic Polar Lows (Zahn, M., H. von Storch, and S. Bakan, 2008: Climate mode simulation of North Atlantic Polar Lows in a limited area model, Tellus A, DOI: 10.1111/j.1600-0870.2008.00330.x) and E Asian typhoons (Feser, F., and H. von Storch, 2008: A dynamical downscaling case study for typhoons in SE Asia using a regional climate model. Mon. Wea. Rev. 136, 1806-1815) has been shown - as compared to only laterally constrained simulations.
The same terminology and a similar approach had been earlier published by Waldron, K. M., J. Peagle and J.D. Horel, 1996: Sensitivity of a spectrally filtered and nudged limited area model to outer model options. Mon. Wea. Rev. 124, 529-547. At the time of submitting our manuscript, this paper was unknown to Hans von Storch, as it dealt with issues of weather forecasting, and he learned from it during the review process. Earlier a number of authors (Kida, Sasaki, McGregor) had experimented with nudging spatial means.
Need for signal-to-noise analysis for assessing the outcome of numerical experiments with atmospheric limited area models just as with global model experiments.
POPs
Hasselmann, K., 1988: PIPs and POPs: The reduction of complex dynamical systems using Principal Interaction and Oscillation Patterns. J. Geophys. Res. 93, 11015-11021
von Storch, H. T. Bruns, I. Fischer-Bruns and K. Hasselmann, 1988: Principal Oscillation Pattern analysis of the 30-60 day oscillation in a GCM equatorial troposphere. - J. Geoph.Res. 93, 11022-11036
von Storch, H., G. Bürger, R. Schnur, and J. von Storch, 1995: Principal Oscillation Pattern: A review. - J. Climate 8, 377-400
The "hockeystick"-episode was a tough time, also interesting in terms of the social process called science. We have summarized how we perceived this time in a comment on the weblog of nature. The problem was that the scienbtist behind the hockeystick used the unfortunate declaration that the hockeystick would be "it", by the IPCC (TAR) as a tool to block others who would come forward with different results; in particular borehole temperature people suffered.
For the debate about detecting and attributing man-made climate change the hockeystick was unnecessary, as was demonstrated by our later analysis (Rybksi et al.) in 2006, which employed various reconstructions; also formal detection and attribution studies had solved the problem long before (e.g., IDAG, 2005: Detecting and attributing external influences on the climate system. A review of recent advances. J. Climate 18, 1291-1314; or, much earlier Hegerl, G., H. von Storch, K. Hasselmann, B.D. Santer, U. Cubasch, P.D. Jones, 1996: Detecting anthropogenic climate change with an optimal fingerprint method. - J. Climate 9, 2281-2306)
The "skeptics" were keen on deconstructing the hockeystick because they considered it as a key argument "pro" man-made causes. However, it was not, and the fact that the hockeystick methodology was flawed did not imply that the question about man-made causes would be entirely open again. (Of course there is some doubt left, because of significant uncertainty in the level of natural variability - but this doubt is small.) This demonstrates very clearly that overselling does not pay; instead it endangers the credibility of the whole community.
The significance of hockeystick business is illustated by the fact that it brought me an invitation to show up as a witness first at the National Research Council and later at the Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations of the Committee on Energy and Commerce, U.S. House of Representatives. (Hearing "Questions Surrounding the ‘Hockey Stick’ Temperature Studies: Implications for Climate Change Assessments" on 19. July 2006)
The key-paper of this effort was
von Storch, H., E. Zorita, J. Jones, Y. Dimitriev, F. González-Rouco, and S. Tett, 2004: Reconstructing past climate from noisy data, Science 306, 679-682, 22 October 2004 (Sciencexpress, doi 10.1126/science.1096109)
which was commented to by Osborn and Briffa, and by S. Rahmstorf.
A kind of final word from our side is provided by
von Storch, H., E. Zorita and J.F. González-Rouco, 2009: Assessment of three temperature reconstruction methods in the virtual reality of a climate simulation. International Journal of Earth Sciences (Geol. Rundsch.) 98:67–82 DOI 10.1007/s00531-008-0349-5 .
Science - public/media/politics interaction.
von Storch, H. and N. Stehr, 1993: Genarrt vom Wettergott. ZEIT 37, 10.9.93, 41-42
von Storch, H. and I. Meinke, 2008: Regional climate offices and regional assessment reports needed. Nature geosciences 1 (2), 78, doi:10.1038/ngeo111
BACC
N European storms - WASA
WASA, 1998: Changing waves and storms in the Northeast Atlantic? - Bull. Amer. Met. Soc. 79, 741-760
Interviews with important scientific personalities:
- 1996: Interview mit Prof. Hans Hinzpeter, Eigenverlag MPI für Meteorologie, Hamburg; in German
- 2000: Interview with Klaus Wyrtki. GKSS Report 99/E/74; in English
- 2003: Interview mit Reimar Lüst. GKSS Report 2003/16, 39 pp; in German
- 2005: Interview with Harry van Loon, GKSS Report2005/8; in English
- 2007: Interview with Klaus Hasselmann, GKSS Report 2007/5; in English, 67 pp