New paper published in Geoscientific Data Journal
ARTICLE DATA Open Access
Ed Hawkins, Stephen Burt, Mark McCarthy, Conor Murphy, Catherine Ross, Mike Baldock, John Brazier , Gill Hersee, Jacqui Huntley, Richard Meats, John O’Grady, Ian Scrimgeour, Heart Silk
First published: March 24, 2022 https://doi.org/10.1002/gdj3.157
This article has been accepted for publication and has undergone full peer review, but has not undergone copying, typesetting, pagination, and proofreading, which may result in differences between this version and Version of the Record. Please cite this article as doi: 10.1002 / gdj3.157
abstract
Recovering additional historical weather observations from known archival sources will improve understanding of how the climate is changing and allow a detailed examination of unusual events in the historical record. The UK’s National Meteorological Archives recently scanned more than 66,000 sheets of paper containing 5.28 million handwritten monthly precipitation observations made across Great Britain and Ireland between 1677 and 1960. Only a small portion of these observations were previously digital for analysis by climate scientists. More than 16,000 volunteer citizen scientists completed replicating these observations in early 2020 using the RainfallRescue.org website, built using the Zooniverse platform. To date, a total of 3.34 million observations from more than 6000 sites have been quality controlled and publicly available. This increased the total number of monthly precipitation observations available for this period and area by a factor of six. The newly rescued observations will allow for longer and more improved reconstructions of past precipitation variations across the British Isles and Ireland, including periods of severe flooding and droughts. important. In particular, this data would allow for an extension of the period of time to reproduce the monthly precipitation officially netted in the United Kingdom back to 1836, and even earlier for some regions.
130 years worth of data recorded by volunteers fills a gap in UK rainfall history
UNIVERSITY READING
Record weather in Victoria has been revealed after millions of rainfall archives dating back nearly 200 years were rescued by thousands of volunteers during the first Covid-19 lockdown.
The Rainfall Rescue Project was launched in March 2020 by the University of Reading and offers members of the public a way to distract yourself from the pandemic by digitally replicating 130 years’ worth of handwritten rainfall observations from across the UK and Ireland.
About 16,000 volunteers participated in the challenge, digitize 5.2 million observations in just 16 days. Ahead of the project’s two-year anniversary, on Saturday, March 26, these records are now publicly available in the official Met Office country records, which span 26 years to 1836.
The efforts of volunteers have revealed several new records for extremely dry and wet months across the UK, as well as providing more context around recent changes in rainfall due to climate change. anthropogenic climate change.
‘Blow away’
Professor Ed Hawkins, a climate scientist at the University of Reading and Lead of the Rainfall Rescue Project, said: “I am still blown away by the response to this project from the public. Copying records required about 100 million keystrokes, but what I thought would take months was completed in just a few days.
“Thanks to the hard work of our volunteers, we now have a detailed account of how much rainfall has fallen, since 1836, as seen through the eyes of other dedicated volunteers from centuries past. previous system. To put that in context, 1836 was the year Charles Darwin returned to Great Britain aboard the Beagle with Vice Admiral Robert Fitzroy, and a year before Queen Victoria ascended the throne.
“As well as being a fascinating look at the past, the new data allow for a longer and more detailed picture of variations in monthly rainfall, which will aid new scientific research in two years. next century. It increases our understanding of extreme weather events and flood risk across the UK and Ireland, and helps us better understand long-term trends for dramatic changes. that we are seeing today”.
Dr Mark McCarthy, head of the Met Office’s National Center for Climate Information, said: “The UK’s rainfall record is notoriously variable, with extreme weather leaving us vulnerable to droughts and floods. The more we can shine light on earlier chapters and extremes in the precipitation profile, the better we can understand the risks posed by climate change and extreme weather events. the future causes us. ”
Notable details revealed by Rainfall Rescue volunteers include:
- The driest year on record today is 1855 (786.5mm), thanks to new data.
- For many areas and the UK as a whole, the driest May on record was May 2020 (9.6mm for the UK), when some volunteers were still helping to confirm the Salvage Rescue records. rain. In doing so, they shipped those records back to May 1844 (8.3mm for the UK).
- November/December 1852 has been confirmed as an exceptionally wet month – December 1852 is now the third wettest month on record in Cumbria (364.9 mm) and November 1852 is the wettest month recorded recorded for much of southern England. Floods are known to have occurred in several locations at this time, and are known as the Duke of Wellington Floods as they began around the time of his state funeral in London.
- Observations were made by people from a variety of backgrounds – such as ‘Lady Bayning’, who recorded rainfall in Norfolk from 1835-1887, even carrying her rainfall gauge with her to London for the social season.
- Multiple rain gauge sites around the country have been included, including one next to Beatrix Potter’s Hilltop Farm in the Lake District, where she wrote many of her most popular books.
The era of digital money
Paper records studied by volunteers from the Rainforest Rescue Foundation contain observations from 1677 to 1960, based on rain gauges in most towns and villages across England and Wales. .
Precipitation has been systematically monitored for the whole of Great Britain since the 1860s when George Symons founded the British Precipitation Foundation to coordinate voluntary precipitation measurements, which later became a branch. of the Met Office. However, the majority of observations made in the pre-digital era, prior to 1960, were not previously reproduced from the original paper records.
Each of the 65,000 pieces of paper kept in National Archives Meteorological Office shows the total monthly rainfall over a period of 10 years and has Scanned in 2019. Many recordings are written in ornate handwriting, which requires the human eye to transcribe.
The Met Office’s official precipitation series in the United Kingdom previously date back to 1862. Thanks to the Rainfall Rescue project, there are now about six times the amount of previously observed data in the years prior to 1960. Number of gauges Rainfall data contribution to the national record for 1862 has increased from 19 to over 700.
These detailed, earlier records could also help advance knowledge about how weather impacts are affected by non-human climate change.
Redefining the archives
After all data had been transcribed, eight dedicated volunteers helped to chronologically sequence the data for each site. These eight volunteers were named co-authors on a paper Published today (Friday 25th March) in Geoscience Data Journal.
Approximately 3.3 million newly reproduced observations have been processed by the Met Office and added to the public document National rainfall statistics on its website.
Catherine Ross, archivist for the Met Office, said: “This project broke the definition of a repository. During its life, a document goes from being a record, in everyday use, to an archive where it is kept as part of memory – in our case the National Memory About Weather.
“However, this project’s 66,000 inanimate sheets of paper have been breathed in new life by putting interrogable and comparable data into the hands of scientists at the Met Office and around the world. ”
Volunteers involved in the project expressed their admiration and thanks to the observers who produced the initial detailed precipitation records and the British Rainfall Foundation for coordinating their work.
Jacqui Huntley, one of eight Rainfall Rescue volunteers based near Stranraer in Scotland who worked on the entire project, said: “I joined because I am British and therefore a fan of the weather, especially rain. And it rains a lot where I live in Scotland. The data is obviously valuable to scientists, but I also enjoyed learning about precipitation observers who have been dedicated to measuring the weather day in and day out. It was fun, and a real team effort, from start to finish. ”
NOTE TO EDUCators
A map showing the locations of all the rain gauges that contributed data to the Rainfall Rescue project can be found at public.flourish.studio/visualization/5534063
Rainfall Rescue Project is implemented on Zooniversea platform for human-supported research.
JOURNEYS
Geoscience Data Journal
DOI
RESEARCH METHODS
Data analysis / statistics
ARTICLE TITLE
Millions of monthly historical rainfall observations made in the UK and Ireland by citizen scientists
ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE
March 25, 2022
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