Abstract
Availability of long‐term and high‐quality instrumental climate records is still insufficient and the rich heritage of meteorological surface observations is largely underexploited in many parts of the world. This is particularly striking over the Greater Mediterranean region (GMR), where meteorological observations have been taken since the 18th century at some locations. The lack of high quality and long series here is despite this region being regarded as a climate change hot spot. This article mainly assesses relevant sources containing Mediterranean historical climate data and metadata either from online repositories worldwide or physical archives, with the emphasis here on the rich holdings kept at French archives. A particular case study is the data rescue (DARE) program undertaken by the Algerian National Meteorological Service, as well as some of the past and ongoing projects and initiatives aimed at enhancing climate data availability and accessibility over the GMR. Our findings point to the high potential for undertaking DARE activities over the GMR and the need for bringing longer and higher quality climate time series to support a diverse number of scientific and technical assessments and policies.
Highlights
Availability, accessibility, or traceability of long-term and high-quality surface climate instrumental records is currently very limited worldwide, the atmosphere has been thoroughly and regularly monitored since the inception of the instrumental era (Allan et al, 2011; Brunet & Jones, 2011; Thorne et al, 2011a,b)
These are some of the demands for climate products and services, which are nowadays required by society to better detect, predict and to respond to the challenges posed by climate variability and man-made climate change (WMO, 2011)
Despite the rich heritage of historical surface climate data and some National Meteorological Services (NMS) and academic institutions have recently undertaken data rescue (DARE) activities aimed at transferring historical climate records from fragile media to new media, few of the necessary long-term records are readily available in digital form
Summary
Availability, accessibility, or traceability of long-term and high-quality surface climate instrumental records is currently very limited worldwide, the atmosphere has been thoroughly and regularly monitored since the inception of the instrumental era (Allan et al, 2011; Brunet & Jones, 2011; Thorne et al, 2011a,b). Long land instrumental records are key elements of information on the past states of the climate system, which contain invaluable clues on historical climate variations, along with the factors that could influence them (Bro€nnimann et al, 2005; Allan et al, 2011; Brunet & Jones, 2011; Thorne et al, 2011b) These climate time series are, the basis of climate research, which brings important scientific and socioeconomic benefits. The article is organised as follows: historical climate data sources and holders, both online repositories and physical archives, are explored first splitting the section into three parts focused on the following: (a) relevant online repositories worldwide containing historical climate data for southern and Middle East Mediterranean countries, (b) the French archives and holdings comprising historical climate data over France and for its past colonies in North Africa, and (c) the ongoing DARE program set up by the Algerian NMS as a case study. The second section is devoted to a discussion of ongoing DARE initiatives supported by international, European, and national bodies, while the last section summarises the study and provides some concluding remarks
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