Climate Exchange

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Data rescue: a necessary look at climate

Philippe Dandin, Patrick Aressy, Nathalie Deaux, Brigitte Dubuisson, Gérard Fleuter, Anne-Laure Gibelin,

Sylvie Jourdain, Laurence Laval, Sylvia Menassere, Emeline Roucaute, Anne-Marie Wieczorek,

Météo-France, Direction de la Climatologie

he implementation and provision of climate services

implies the enhancement of climate information. The

latter is, of course, a crucial step to achieve the former.

From that point of view, it is increasingly widely recognized

that data rescue is of vital importance. Data rescue helps clima-

tologists to strengthen their judgement in terms of time, space,

parameters, distributions and extremes, or to improve the quality

of the existing assessments. Thanks to the results of data rescue

efforts, which deliver enriched data series and enable a better

qualification process by homogenization, climate scientists can

describe, understand and address issues that suffer from a lack

of observation.

A seldom mentioned benefit of data rescue is that it is a real climate

service. But how does the improvement and inclusion of historic

information lead to – or hold the potential for – improved climate

services? Old documents tell us a story that all stakeholders more or

less know or have heard about. From that point of view, data rescue

is critical for risk management and climate adaptation. Notably,

data rescue creates links with other communities and other ways of

analysing the world, understanding its complexity and predicting its

possible futures.

National meteorological and hydrological services (NMHSs)

have a critical role to play in data rescue. They have a long history,

and have routinely produced large sets of observations. Their

archives are rich – being kept ‘in-house’ or by specialized agencies

– and full of information, if sometimes undervalued. Moreover,

NMHSs reach out every day to users, dealing with natural disasters

and being able to locate such events in a historical context; this

is where they can shed light on historical resources, temporally

merged with present hazards and confronted by possible futures.

Old documents tell us a story we can understand. They speak of us,

as human beings, facing a global change. Data rescue is much more

than getting access to data and metadata. It is a way into citizens’

perceptions of climate.

Risk, adaptation and education

Among climate services, the education of users is one of the

most significant requests. This can cover a wide range of aspects,

from being uncomfortable with scenarios and the management

of uncertainty to using series without accessing quality or even

knowing about traceability. Data rescue efforts not only contribute

to improving background knowledge; they also help scientists to

make users aware of such aspects. Data rescue helps citizens or

decision makers to grasp a little of what scientists try to explain,

to figure out and foresee possible futures by diving back into

our common history, into our memories. Delivering

scenarios in a fancy way is not enough. Users’ feedback

asks mainly for support, explanation and education.

Users need to understand and to see. Brains need to

be stimulated and fed.

This is a real climate service to educate us about

best practices. In France, typically, it took time before

many affected communities realized how critical the

memory of their activities could be for addressing the

future. As a benefit of that, on the side of the mete-

orological service’s efforts regarding data rescue and

homogenization, hydrologists started their own effort

in that direction, being aware that they could not carry

on impact studies and imagine adaptation measures

without a correct representation of the past. Long

homogenized series delivered by the meteorological

service were used for detection and impact studies on

hydrological extremes.

We believe it would be an abuse, and a mistake, to

think that climate scenarios alone, albeit with statistical

corrections, could be enough. There is a crucial need for

high-quality past data and awareness must be raised on

this issue. Data rescue is a strategic need. Advocating

for it is a vital necessity. Resolute action and support

must come from governmental agencies and can also, as

in France, benefit from private sponsorships.

apacity

evelopment

Source: Météo-France and Archives Nationales

A drawing of the ‘sémaphore’coastal station of Cap de La

Hougue; one of many documents extracted from an asbestos-

polluted box in a joint effort between Archives Nationales and

Météo-France, sponsored by Fondation BNP Paribas