Data Rescue Activities in RAI

1. Data Rescue Activities in RAI PRESENTED AT THE INTERNATIONAL WORKSHOP ON DATA RESCUE AND DIGITIZATION OF CLIMATE RECORDS FOR COUNTRIES IN WEST AFRICA & THE CCl Task Team on DARE meeting, ACCRA, GHANA, 18-23 NOV 2012 By Joseph Mukuria Kimani TT CO-CHAIR

2. THE MATHEMATICS • OBSERVED DATA – DIGITIZED DATA = ? • IF ? IS POSITIVE…….WHY? • THEN • IS IT IMPORTANT TO REDUCE ? • HOW, WHEN, WHO……….??? • FINALLY IT IS GOOD TO REMEMBER THAT THE ? DATA HAS NEVER BEEN USED BY ANYONE HENCE HOW DO WE USE IT WHEN WE GET IT?

3. Introduction • RA I has had its DARE effort carried out through various projects financed by various groups at different times and for different sub-regions • Thus the RAI NEEDS TO organize DARE system as a region and ACMAD can assist FACT IS • There is an amount of data rescue that is known to have been carried out as:

4. Western Africa: SITUATION OF DATA RESCUE • A Data Rescue project was first implemented in 1979 in Africa, for west African countries, aiming at assisting countries in the management, preservation and use of climatic data over their own territories, funded primarily by Belgium. • Equipment consisting of camera, microfiches reader, copier were donated. The microfilms were sent to the International Data rescue Co-ordination Centre in Brussels (IDCC) to make microfiches. As from 27 May 1997 onwards, the DARE I coordination was transferred to ACMAD in Niamey. • So ACMAD received IDCC’s PC network, the microform equipment with remaining supplies and a diazo-copy of the 91,750 microfiches at IDCC (+ 2,408 new microfiches to be duplicated and inventoried at ACMAD).

5. Togo Benin Rwanda Paper documents digital preservationin Western Africasub-region of RA I Countries received PCs, Digital Cameras, Copy Stands and CDs

6. Currently: • ACMAD has data for 42 countries on microfiche • ACMAD plans to carry out data rescue for ALL countries in Africa and WMO has indicated to them that a project for that can be considered through ClimDev. (John Mikya – Chief Climate and Environment Department, ACMAD (now retired!))

7. The African Upper Air Data Rescue • Became operational in the year 2003 for Kenya, Malawi, Mozambique, Niger, Senegal and Zambia • Data from this work is actually available at National Climatic Data Center (NCDC) • The data forms part of 1.5 million records IEDRO has helped rescue all over the world *

8. African Upper-Air Image/Keying Project Data Flow Burned to CD_ROM QC Keyed Data Build Indexes Data are keyed from images Inventory & Log Images NCDC Images Burned to CD in country

9. AFRICAN UPPER AIR DATA RESCUE CONTINUING COUNTRIES Malawi Mozambique Niger Senegal Tanzania and Zambia

10. PROBLEM • SEEMS AS IF TODAY (AS WE ARE HERE) THAT GOOD EXERCISE IS HAVING PROBLEMS • VIZ MARTIN'S IEDRO VIEW.txt

11. Kenyan Situation • Data, besides the UPPER AIR type, were photographed using a camera, keyed-in and then the OLD paper data was bound into book-form. (NB: The exercise stalled after cameras failed but is expected to continue as a way of preserving the data better) (1) Imaging and Keying in data (2) Securing the original through binding

12. Some forms have to be patched up • Before even keying in the data

13. OUT_SOURCING SERVICES • Because of the cost of keying-in data using professional services Kenya decided to EMPLOY youthful casual workers with computer knowledge for a period of 6 months to fast track the exercise; • The STAFF at KMD then ensures the quality is good through a 2nd phase of entering same data as it is compared with the one already keyed-in (double entry as 1st QC exercise); • The exercise (ongoing currently) is promising to be faster and cheaper; (However we had to borrow computers from our training Institute while the students were on holiday) • It is anticipated that all our previously not entered AGROMET data will be digitized by the end of the exercise.

14. IEDRO VS WMO Memorandum Of Understanding (MOU) IEDRO has signed an MOU with WMO on matters of Data Rescue

15. ATTEMPT AT FINDING POSSIBLE NMHS FOCAL POINTS FOR THE EAST AFRICAN COMMUNITY (EAC) SUB-REGION • Having made some contact at East African Community (EAC) meeting on its meteorological Data Policy, an attempt was made to find out how Data Rescue matters were for Burundi, Kenya, Ruanda, Tanzania and Uganda • So far Tanzania and Kenya have done something, Uganda has started by a project to digitize all its rainfall data, Ruanda is using CLIMSOFT to re-build its CLICOM database while the Burundi situation remains unclear

16. WITH THE COMING TOGETHER OF ALL MINISTERS IN-CHARGE OF METOROLOGY IN AFRICA IT WOULD BE POSSIBE TO HIGHLIGHT THE ESSENCE OF DATA RESCUE IN THE REGION (depends much on our contribution and impacts we have on their work)

17. In Africa, Climatological Data Management is done using: CLIMSOFT Burundi Kenya Lesotho Malawi Namibia Rwanda Seychelles Tanzania Uganda Zambia Gabon Congo D. R. Congo Central Africa Cameroon Angola Sao Tome & Pr. Zimbabwe CLISYS Madagascar Egypt Libya CLIDATA Cape Verde Gambia Guinea Guinea-Bissau Chad Mali Mauritania Niger Senegal Benin Togo Ghana Ethiopia