1 / 14

Introduction: what is the SMC?

Identification and digitization of instrumental climate data from Catalan documentary sources (18th - 21th centuries) Marc Prohom, Mònica Herrero and Anna Rius Area of Climatology – Meteorological Service of Catalonia. Applied Research and Modelitzation. Info. Technology and Communications.

tod
Download Presentation

Introduction: what is the SMC?

An Image/Link below is provided (as is) to download presentation Download Policy: Content on the Website is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use and may not be sold / licensed / shared on other websites without getting consent from its author. Content is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use only. Download presentation by click this link. While downloading, if for some reason you are not able to download a presentation, the publisher may have deleted the file from their server. During download, if you can't get a presentation, the file might be deleted by the publisher.

E N D

Presentation Transcript

  1. Identification and digitization of instrumental climate data from Catalan documentary sources (18th - 21th centuries) Marc Prohom, Mònica Herrero and Anna Rius Area of Climatology – Meteorological Service of Catalonia

  2. Applied Researchand Modelitzation Info. Technologyand Communications Forecasting Climatology Administration • Among the main functions of the Area of Climatologythe law of meteorology quotes: • To maintain the meteorological data base of Catalonia. • To promote investigational activities with regards to meteorology and climatology and to support the development of related products and services. Introduction: what is the SMC? The Meteorological Service of Catalonia (SMC) was established in 2001 as a public entity of the Generalitat de Catalunya (Catalan Autonomous Government), thus recovering the former SMC that had been very active during the period 1921-1939. Nowadays it is organized into five different areas:

  3. The climatic information available is already incomplete due to two main reasons: • at the end of the 19th century and during the first decades of the 20th century, the meteorological observation in Catalonia was not regulated by a unique meteorological office but by a wide range of public and private institutions or, even, individual observers, and, • as a result of the dramatic political circumstances that our country suffered during the 20th century (especially the Spanish Civil War, 1936-1939), many of the climatic information generated since then was destroyed, lost or scattered all over the territory. The project Keeping in mind the main objectives of the area, during the last two years a project of Identification, cataloguing and digitization of instrumental climate data from Catalan documentary sources, encompassing the period between 18th century and the present, has been initiated.

  4. Metadata METADEM To identify new sources To catalogue those sources To extract the climatic information Climatic dataBDSCLIM Qualitycontrol Analysis of homogeneity Methodology To analyze the climatic documentary sources, identifying as many as possible meteorological stations or observatories, and the meteorological series associated to these sites. To create a database of the metadata for each of the sites detected: METADEM. To construct a database of the series associated to each one of the meteorological sites (temperature and precipitation): BDSCLIM. Quality control and homogeneity analysis of the series. At present the SMC is involved in the COST Action ES0601: Advances in Homogenisation Methods of Climate Series: An integrated Approach (HOME)

  5. Until now (2007) four different sources have been analysed: • Source 1: The National Database from the Spanish Meteorological Office • Source 2: The database of the former Meteorological Service of Catalonia • Source 3: The Royal Academy of Sciences and Arts of Barcelona (RACAB) and the Royal Academy of Medicine (RAM) • Source 4: A set of bibliographic sources: bulletins of different institutions and climatic atlas. Sources of climatic information analysed

  6. This source consists of two great datasets: • Digitized data: 836 precipitation series484 thermometric series Mainly for the period (1910-2006)Daily resolution • Scanned precipitation cards: Evolution of the number of precipitation series over Catalonia (each colour is a geographical region) An example of a rainfall card (1922) Source 1: The National database of the Spanish Meteorological office

  7. Rainfall stations network (1914) Observation diary of Mataró (April 1899) Source 2: The former Meteorological Service of Catalonia (1921-1939) This source not only contains climatic information of the period in which the former SMC was active, but material provided by previous institutions (1895-1921). This material is now digitized thanks to this project: • The first Meteorological Network of Catalonia and the Balearics (1895-1905, aprox). • The rainfall network of Catalonia coordinated by the Catalan Observatory (1905-1911, aprox.) • The Astronomical Society of Barcelona (1910-1921) • The first Catalan Meteorological Service (1921-1939)

  8. Royal Academyof Sciences and Arts of Barcelona Identification and catalogue of that entries with climatic value (RACAB) Great scientific activity (from 18th century) Important archives Scanning and digitization of the meteorological observations made in Barcelona by Dr. Salvà (1780-1826) Royal Academy of Medicine Source 3: The Academies of Medicine and the Sciences and Arts

  9. First page of the meteorological observations made by Dr. Salvà. January 1780 Source 3: The Academies of Medicine and the Sciences and Arts

  10. Geographicalinformation Who is/was in charge? Locationdescription Observers Temperatureobservations:period covered,screens used, instruments,units,documentarysources,... Precipitation observations: instruments used, documentary sources Additional information The METADEM The metadata information of each site detected and extracted from these sources is introduced in the METADEM (Database of Metadata)

  11. TEMPERATURE PRECIPITATION Daily Daily Monthly Number of series per decade before the project (in grey) and after the project (in green). Period 1860-2004. First improvements of the project • New data has been detected and incorporated to the database. • Temporal coverage has been improved: for the period previous the Spanish Civil War, 150 new thermopluviometric series have been identified and 200 series has now a wider temporal coverage.

  12. Meteorological sites that has a wider temporal coverage (green) Meteorological sites previous to the project New meteorological sites detected (blue) First improvements of the project • Evolution of the spatial coverage

  13. Results of the quality control for the maximum and minimum temperature series of the Ebre Observatory. Quality control and homogeneity testing A quality control process has been defined, according to the bibliography. Every series is analysed looking for erroneous or doubtful data. The final homogeneity testing process will be defined following the conclusions of the COST action HOME.

  14. During the next years we will focus on the following items: • Quality control and homogeneity testing of the series. • Incorporation of the rest of meteorological variables. • Finishing with the analysis of the documentary batches from the former SMC, paying attention to photographic material and correspondence to complete with our metadata knowledge. • Carrying on with the identification of new sources (local and county archives). • Analysis of a likely useful source: the written press. “La Cruz” newspaper. Tarragona, 13th March 1903 Work in progress...

More Related