ACRE-facilitated reanalyses database
The daily to sub-daily global historical surface atmospheric pressure observations needed for the ACRE-facilitated surface-observations-only reanalyses (20th Century Reanalysis Project, early to mid-19th Century Reanalysis, and North Atlantic-European Region mid 18th-early 19th Century Reanalysis) will be held in the GCOS AOPC/OOPC Working Group on Surface Pressure (WG-SP) International Surface Pressure Data bank (ISPD - terrestrial observations) and the International Comprehensive Ocean-Atmosphere Data Set (ICOADS - marine observations). These observations will be made available to the international scientific community.Projects to improve availability of historical observations
ACRE is facilitating work to make more historical observations available for climate research and reanalyses; notably by organising a project to image and digitise instrumental weather observations in ship logbooks.
ACRE is collaborating with a number of international data rescue projects and activities
Inventory of historical Chinese and South China Sea instrumental weather observations
ACRE is working to set up an initiative in conjunction with Professor Robert Bickers, Department of Historical Studies, Bristol University and his Chinese Maritime Customs Project, the China Meteorological Administration (CMA) (under a Memorandum of Understanding that the Met Office Hadley Centre has with CMA) and the joint CCl/CLIVAR/JCOMM Expert Team on Climate Change Detection and Indices (ETCCDI) to produce an inventory of all the sources of historical Chinese and South China Sea region terrestrial and marine daily to sub-daily meteorological data. In February/March 2008, a student of Prof Bickers will visit China to consult various archives and develop the inventory. A small digitisation effort is underway in the Met Office Hadley Centre to key the twice daily pressure observations published in the China Coast Meteorological Register (1874-1932) and held as hard copy in the Met Office archives (1874-1893) or scanned on the NOAA Central Library WWW pages (1894-1932).The Chinese meteorological inventory will:
- Provide the basis for a thorough program of recovery/rescue, imaging and digitisation of old historical daily to sub-daily meteorological observations made at Chinese inland stations, by ships travelling and stationed along its rivers, at ports and lighthouses along the Chinese coast and from terrestrial and marine sources in and around the South China Sea
- Add to the observations currently scanned on the NOAA Central Library WWW pages.
- Build on the data for the South China Sea region being digitised in the Met Office Hadley Centre.
Mediterranean Region
ACRE is liaising and collaborating with data rescue and research projects focusing on the Mediterranean region: the MEditerranean climate DAta REscue (MEDARE) initiative, and the Mediterranean CLImate VARiability and Predictability (MedCLIVAR) initiatives. The aim is to work closely with the research communities and National Meteorological Services (NMS) that are part of MEDARE and MedCLIVAR in order to facilitate the recovery, imaging, digitisation, quality control and archiving of historical daily to sub-daily weather observations over the wider Mediterranean region.ACRE is also collaborating with the Portuguese SIGN (Signatures of environmental change in the geophysical institutes) project; that aims to recover the 19th and 20th century data collected by the country's Geophysical Institutes and National Meteorological Service, including data from the former African and Asian colonies.
European Region
Collaboration between ACRE and the European Climate Support Network (ECSN) will focus on working together to extend and enhance the ECSN daily European data repository maintained by the European Climate Assessment & Dataset (ECA&D) project. Links to ECSN will also provide ACRE with direct access to the majority of National Meteorological Services (NMS) across the greater European domain. This infrastructure will again provide a regional focus for the coherent recovery, imaging, digitisation, quality control and archiving of historical European daily to sub-daily weather observations.France and French colonies around the world
ACRE is using the revitalised Memorandum of Understanding between the Met Office Hadley Centre and MeteoFrance concerning exchange and collaboration on historical atmospheric pressure data for mainland France and French colonies around the world, to engender coordinated recovery, imaging, digitisation, quality control and archiving of daily to sub-daily pressure data.African Region
Linkages have been established with the World Climate Research Programme (WCRP) Climate Variability and Predictability (CLIVAR) Variability of the African Climate System (VACS) Panel to explore joint activities with ACRE in Africa. ACRE is also looking to work with the AMMA (African Monsoon Multidisciplinary Analyses) initiative and the developing GCOS-WCRP-WCP-ICPAC World Bank Proposal "Climate Observations and Regional Modelling in Support of Climate Risk Management and Sustainable Development."International
ACRE played a significant role in making possible a marine data exchange, which saw DWD (Deutscher Wetterdienst) provide ICOADS, and ultimately the 20th Century Reanalysis Project, with a block of digitised German merchant ship observations for the 1876-1902 period. There is hope that additional DWD marine data will be available in the near future.ACRE is working with the International Environmental Data Rescue Organization (IEDRO) in order to coordinate international data rescue activities and share expertise and experience. IEDRO have ongoing data rescue projects in a number of countries in Africa and South America, and have worked closely with US agencies such as Climate Database Modernization Program (CDMP).
ACRE is also keen to see the development of optical methods to digitise charts and plots from instruments recording continuous traces of climate and weather variables (thermohydrographs, barographs etc.). This is being explored with IEDRO, Dr Theo Brandsma at KNMI, and Dr Alfred Dufter in Germany.