Data Rescue Activities in the French NMS

Météo-France

Sylvie Jourdain, Direction de la Climatologie

Météo-France

Data Rescue activities at Météo-France

1. Introduction

2. Data Rescue Programs at Météo-France

3. Meteorological archives in France

4. Main Problems

5. Perspectives

6. Conclusions

Introduction

• Data Rescue activities at Météo-France, managed by the Climatology department (DCLIM) in Toulouse, include

• Climate data preservation

• Digitization

• Quality control

• Primary component of the national archive :National Climatological Database (BDCLIM)

• French climate data and metadata are accessible through internet http://climatheque.meteo.fr

Context

Historical Data Rescue program started in 1994

A lot of series back to 1960 in the Météo-France National Climatological Database (BDCLIM)

Huge amount of meteorological data in different archives everywhere in France

Necessity to determine priorities for digitizing

First program : Monthly averages of daily temperature and monthly rainfall from 1850 to 1960

to build long time series to estimate long term trends over whole 20th century on the basis of homogenized time series

Data Rescue Program 1994-2003

National and departmental cimatological books from Météo-France archives and libraries Digitizing

National Annals like Annuaires du Bureau Central Météorologique 1878-1920,

http://docs.lib.noaa.gov/rescue/data_rescue_french.html Monthly rainfall in France (Raulin) 1715-1880 http://gallica.bnf.fr Annuaires de la société météorologique 1849-1899

Bulletins mensuels météorologiques de l’Association Scientifique de France 1871-1876

Departmental meteorological AnnalsCommission météorologiques départementales 1872-1950

Monthly Rainfall Stations Mean densityin Météo-France Database BDCLIM

Data Rescue program since 2003

New objectives

Daily Temperature, Rainfall and Sunshine Duration and sub-daily Pressure for France mainland and overseas in order to address extremes for the period 1850-1960

New means

• Great effort dedicated to locate relevant data sources :

Guide on how to search and inventorize climate data in France

Team dedicated to Data rescue at the Climatology Department

National Action : Inventories of original written manuscript records archived in Météo-France weather stations

Daily data availability in BDCLIM in 2007

Daily temperature

0

500

1000

1500

2000

2500

1840 1860 1880 1900 1920 1940 1960 1980 2000

nu

mb

er o

f st

atio

ns

Daily Rainfall

0

500

1000

1500

2000

2500

3000

3500

4000

4500

1840 1860 1880 1900 1920 1940 1960 1980 2000

nu

mb

er

of

sta

tio

ns

Daily Temperature Daily rainfall

40 stations in 1900 670 stations in1900260 stations in 1950 2000 stations in 19502350 stations in 2005 4090 stations in 2005

Meteorological Archives in France

Météo-France : at least 100 different sites (weather stations, departmental weather centres (96), regional weather centres (7), libraries,

National archives http://www.archivesnationales.culture.gouv.fr/cac/fr

Departmental archives (96 sites in France) Municipal archives Universities , research laboratories scientists association libraries Ministry of Defense archives

BnF (the French National Library) with the french digital library Gallica maintained by BnFhttp://gallica.bnf.fr

Main Problems

Localization : Archives in many places at Météo-France in mainland and overseas

Inventories not always available at Météo-France and at public archives

Data collection : some archives are not accessible and documents borrowing is not always possible

Identification : specific observing location (index number) for data without metadata (annals with tables )

Preservation : the lack of human and financial resources does not allow to preserve and digitize all the data

Data rescue Objectives

• To Complete and lengthen the observatories series (daily and sub-daily data) :

Paris, Bordeaux, Lyon , Marseille Marseille

• Digitize paper records from the departmental weather centres meteorological :

Daily temperature 250 stations period 1900-1950

Daily rainfall 1000 stations period 1880-1950

• To digitize « Bulletin de l’observatoire de Paris » imaged files : Sub-daily Pressure for 25 stations 1857-1920

• To digitize climatological annals 1878-1920 : daily rainfall for 800 stations

Algeria, Tunisia and Morocco Archives at Météo-france

Monthly and daily climatological reports from old French Colonies archived at the Climatology

department in Toulouse Inventories available

Algeria : 74 stations 1928-1962 1060 microfiches and 212 microfilms

Tunisia : 14 stations 1899-1961 1528 microfiches

Marocco : 30 stations 1924-1962 462 microfiches 39 microfilms 

Conclusions

Vast amount of paper records archived in the Météo-France centers and a lot of work has to be done to inventory and digitize the data

Despite the lack of resources, both human and financial, there is a willing to boost data rescue activities and valorize old meteorological information.

The effort is growing inside Météo-France

Météo-France wants to be more present at the international level joining current efforts promoted by WMO

Thank you

for your attention