Data rescue of historical meteorological observations from the Island of Ireland (1783 – 1939)

Historical meteorological observations are crucial for better assessing past climate variability and trends in the frequency, intensity, duration, and distribution of extreme weather events, and for placing the current climate change into historical context. Specifically, long-term high-resolution data at daily and hourly scales are essential for a more accurate assessment of past and rare extreme weather events. Historical meteorological observations are crucial for generating climate products, such as reanalysis and gridded datasets.

Ireland has a great heritage of historical instrumental meteorological observations (Mateus, 2021). This presentation will primarily focus on four historical meteorological collections from Ireland, which have been rescued from the original paper sources and digitally preserved, including examples of data application for climate research:

1) Meteorological observations from over 40 locations in Ireland registered from 1783 to 1854 and preserved in the archives of the Royal Irish Academy. The meteorological records include observations of air temperature, maximum and minimum air temperatures, dry and wet bulb temperatures, sea temperature, rainfall, pressure, wind direction and force, cloud cover, cloud form, tension of vapour and weather remarks.

2) Meteorological observations from over 70 locations in Ireland registered from 1808 to 1939, which were published in newspapers. The majority of the original manuscripts are not traceable; hence, the importance of rescuing these meteorological observations from newspapers. Observed climate variables include maximum and minimum air temperatures, dry and wet bulb temperatures, rainfall, pressure, wind direction and speed, maximum air temperature in the sun, humidity, cloud cover, and qualitative remarks on the state of the weather.

3) Meteorological observations from Dunsink Observatory from 1818 to 1850.

4) A network of meteorological observations from multiple sites in Ulster (1796 – 1919), which includes the long-term series registered at the Linen Hall (1796 – 1895) and Queen’s College Belfast (1850-1919).

Many well-known historical extreme weather events in Ireland, such as extreme air temperatures and storms, are documented in historical instrumental and documentary meteorological records.

The metadata and data from these meteorological collections have been rescued and will be made available as open access in forthcoming peer-reviewed publications and digital datasets.

 

References

Mateus, C., 2021. Searching for historical meteorological observations on the Island of Ireland. Weather, 76(5), pp.160-165.