Towards new weather and climate baselines for assessing weather and climate extremes, impacts, and risks

• Main Authors: WILLIAMSON, Fiona, ALLAN, Rob, D'Arrigo, Roseanne
• Format: text
• Language: English
• Published: Institutional Knowledge at Singapore Management University 2017
• Subjects: Climate; data recovery; dynamical reconstructions; historic weather; re-analyses; Asian Studies; Environmental Sciences; Geographic Information Sciences
• Online Access: https://ink.library.smu.edu.sg/cis_research/227; https://ink.library.smu.edu.sg/context/cis_research/article/1226/viewcontent/11_CBA2014_01_pvoa_cc_by.pdf
• Institution: Singapore Management University

Initiatives to recover (sourcing, imaging, digitizing) historic datasets for generating more accurate longterm climate models have only gained momentum over the last decade, despite a long precedent of compelling arguments as to the value of historic weather observations (Le Roy Ladurie, 1972; Lamb, 1977). Although such work is relatively well established in Europe, the United States, China, and Japan; Southeast Asia currently has a dearth of data rescue initiatives with a long historical focus. The reasons behind this include a perception of the paucity of surviving data; the scattered nature of data due to shifts between colonial rule and independence and, later regime changes; a lack of local resources to develop data recovery projects. By way of example, the Southeast Asian Climate Assessment & Dataset (SACA&D) Digitisasi Data Historis (DiDaH) project, now completed, was limited by the fact that the bulk of observations recovered and digitized were in the post 1940s-50s period (apart from Indonesia in the South East Asian region) and, their data rescue was directed at National Meteorological Service (NMS) records only, with generally a heavy focus on temperature and precipitation data. ACRE SEA has a wider scope, with a longer historical timeframe (especially with a pre 1940s-50s observations focus) and broader record collection base, using archives, libraries, and online sources across the region and internationally. In fact, the SACA&D DiDaH project.