Libya Climate Data Rescue Effort

This study presents professional work carried out within the Climate Directorate of the LNMC outside regular working hours. Its primary objective is to initiate rescue of Libya’s climate data by scanning historical weather and climate records stored in the LNMC’s Climatic Archive, which operates under the mandate of the Climate Directorate.

A data heritage of enormous scientific value has been accumulated in Libya’s Climatic Archive since the early 20th century. Part of these data were observed during the Italian colonial period (1911–1943), when Libya was under Italian rule. However, a substantial portion of Libya’s historical climate data, dating back to the colonial era, remains scattered across several European archives (particularly in the UK and Germany) and still needs to be recovered.

The LNMC archive currently contains approximately 45,201 items, including registers, notebooks, and publications (updated as of May 2025). In addition, the archive continues to receive new registers each year, as Libyan meteorological stations, including automatic weather stations (AWSs), still record observations in logbooks.

To date, only about 6,600 registers (approximately 198,000 pages) have been imaged and stored in JPG and PDF formats. Moreover, LNMC has recently received scanned copies of registers and books produced during the Italian colonial period, from Italy. These meteorological observations still require digitization.

In parallel, LNMC conducts digitization activities during regular working hours; however, these efforts are limited to more recent observations, some of which date back to the early 1960s. Additionally, data from some online published studies have been recovered and digitized.

Given that historical data rescue is a key pillar for closing Libya’s early warning gap and for improving the understanding of historical climate variability and change, LNMC plans to accelerate its data rescue activities. This effort is expected to be supported by external donors who have committed to providing scanners and high-capacity server infrastructure.