Overview of Météo-France Data Rescue in connection with ACRE and related projects Sylvie Jourdain, Direction de la Climatologie Météo-France

Data Rescue activities at Météo-France 1.Introduction 2.Secular meteorologial records in France 3.Meteorological archives in France 4.Météo-France Data Rescue Programs 5.DARE activities in connection with ACRE 6.DARE activities in connetion with EU-CIRCE and MEDARE 7.Conclusion

Brief french meteorology history France has a very long and wealthy meteorological history. The French began systematic meteorological observations in the late 17th century over France but the documents before the 18th century are very rare. Most of the observations in the 18th century were made by the. astronomical community : Paris and Marseille. medical community Royal Society of Medicine (SRM) , more than 200 doctors sent their daily observations to L.Cotte. L.Cotte published monthly summaries from in memories Societas Meterologica Palatina published french sub-daily data (Marseille, Dijon, La Rochelle) from 1781 to 1793 Unfortunately the Royal Society of Medicine were destroyed during the french revolution and the meteorological network too. Long and reliable climate series are rare in the early 19th century in France Long climatic series back at least 150 years can be built in several french cities

Records Localization The first difficulty of developing records is locating the archival material  Angot (1895) wrote the first catalog of meteorological observations in France until 1850 : period of observations, name of the observer, publication and location of original records (in 1895 !)  Angot (1900, 1906) studied the climate of France and built reliable temperature and pressure long series  Meteorological readings taken in the 18th and 19th century were published in numerous publications (newspapers, annals, statistical reports, memories, yearbooks..  Monthly or annual summaries were published in national publications whereas daily data can be found in departmental or local publications

Long surface pressure series in France mainland Paris observatories since the late 17th century -Marseille observatories since Toulouse observatories since military airport -Lyon observatories since airport -Bordeaux (SRM), (Sciences university +observatory) -Metz (SRM), (military school ) -Rochefort (military hospital) -Strasbourg since 1802 scientists + observatory + airport - Perpignan since 1846 doctors + observatory+ airport Missing data during the World War 2 : in the North and in the South ( recovery in progress ) however no gap for Paris and Marseille

Secular meteorological records overseas Meteorological observations started in the early 19th century overseas but were organised 1852 in military hospitals in Cayenne (French Guyana), Point-à Pitre (Guadeloupe), Nouméa (New-Caledonia), Papeete (Tahiti) et Fort-de France (Martinique) : 5 overseas long series back to mid-19th could be built Military Hospital Fort de France

Meteorological Archives in France Climate data are hidden in many places in France  Météo-France archives in at least 100 different sites : weather stations, departmental weather centres (96), regional weather centres (7), Météo-France library, overseas weather centres  National archives (mainland : Fontainebleau, overseas: Aix en Provence)  Departmental archives (98 sites)  Municipal archives and libraries in all cities !  University libraries, research laboratories, observatory libraries  scientists association libraries  Ministry of Defense archives (Service historique de la Défense in Vincennes)

French meteorological data in numerical libraries More and more libraries and archives scan original records or books to make them available on websites  French digital library Gallica contains Science Academy memories (Paris, Bordeaux, Metz), Annals(Annals de physique Chimie  Sciences Academy archives  Medic : Paris Medicine university numerical library, Royal society of medicine – NOAA library (Annuaires du Bureau Central Météorologique )  Google Books (annals, memories, reports published in the 19th century)

Météo-France DARE program Data Rescue activities at Météo-France are managed by the Climatology department (DClim) in Toulouse The first DARE program started in 1994 In 1994 most series extended back to 1961 and professional stations series extended back to 1949 in the Météo-France National Climatological Database (BDCLIM) Digitisation – Daily and sub-daily data of professional stations back to 1920 –Monthly temperature and monthly rainfall from 1850 to 1960 Material for 19 th century climatic series - Annuaires du Bureau Central Météorologique , - Monthly rainfall in France (Raulin) Annuaires de la société météorologique Bulletins mensuels météorologiques de l’ASF

Data Rescue program since 2004 New objectives Daily Temperature, Rainfall, Sunshine Duration and sub-daily Pressure for France mainland and overseas with focus on the 20th century records New means National Action undertaken by national regional and depatmental services : Inventories of original written manuscript records archived at Météo-France weather stations and at departmental archives Great effort dedicated to locate relevant data sources by Météo- France agents in departmental weather centres Primary component of the national archive : National Climatological Database (BDCLIM)  New tool for digitisation available in each departmental weather cenres (Climsol)

Daily data availability in the Météo-France Climatological Database Daily Temperature Daily rainfall 7 stations in stations in stations in stations in stations in stations in stations in stations in stations in stations in 2005

19th century sub-daily surface Pressure in the Météo-France database Paris observatory ( digitisation of 4 obs/day in process) Rochefort (gaps digitisation in process) Metz Versailles 1846 – 1881 Beauficel Goersdorf Vendôme Dijon Rouen Paris observatory January 1816 Digitisation of « Annuaires météorologiques » have provided subdaily pressure from 1845 to 1878 for 31 stations but 25 stations with short pressure series less than 5 years

DARE activities in connection with ACRE Long-term goal : Complete and lengthen the observatories series with great potential Great potential : observatory records were taken with meticulous care by early scientits Paris-observatoire : digitization of Pstat and T (4 obs/day) Paris-Montsouris : digitization of all parameters (8 obs/day) Marseille : Collaboration with M. Barriendos (Barcelona university) and M. Pichard (Aix en Provence) -original paper forms located and stored in the departmental archives, microfilms bought from the departmental archives but unreadable -Digitization in process by Météo-France : sub-daily pressure (4 obs/day) from « Répertoire de statistique de Marseille » given by M. Pichard

DARE activities in connection with ACRE Bordeaux  observatory records located : P and T 4obs/jour digitisation in process  Bordeaux sciences university : (mémoires académie des sciences de Bordeaux, annuaires SMF), partly digitized, the rest has to be located  Lyon : « memories climatologie lyonnaise » recently scanned, digitilization of sub-daily P and T digitisation action planned  Strasbourg , : observatory annals and German records during the World War recently rescued : digitization of several parameters , Recovery action launched to locate the series Herrenschneider and in the military school

DARE activities in connection with ACRE Le Verrier (director of the Paris observatory) set up the french meteorological network consisted of 24 stations covering the whole national territory in stations could transmit the observations made at office opening hours by telegraph every day. The records were published every day in the publicaton « bulletin international de l’observatoire impérial de Paris », documents are stored in the Météo-France librarypr The documents contain French and foreigner countries surface pressure data observed at 7h DARE action  Daily documents have been imaged for the period  Digitisation in process : French surface pressure observed at 8h in 13 stations  Metadata recovery action in process because no metadata in the publication, just the name of the city ! Curent action before archiving to find the coordinates of the telegraph offices

DARE for North-Africa ( EU-CIRCE and MEDARE projects) Daily climatological reports from old French Colonies in Africa are archived at the Climatology department in Toulouse on microfiches and microfilms DARE action : detailed inventories available (MEDARE) Collaboration with the Morocco NMS Data available on microfiches for 30 stations Annals and daily reports stored at the M é t é o-France library can complete the series Morocco data after 1961 are in the Morocco NMS database DARE initiative : to construct daily series for 5 stations back to 1924 with the concatenation of the recent data from the Morocco NMS : Casablanca, Fez, Rabat, Meknes, Kasbah Tadla, M é t é o-France manages the imaging of books and microfiches and the digitization of daily data Fundings : EU-CIRCE

Conclusion France has a very long and wealthy meteorological history going back to late 18th century. Great efforts have been dedicated to locate relevant data sources because the instrumental records are dispersed. A huge amount of climatic data are still to be rescued in France for the last 200 years to extend the climatic daily and sub-daily series. The construction of reliable instrumental long series is a long way : location of the records, data and metadata recovery, imaging, digitisation, qualiy control and finally archiving. Météo-France data rescue is focusing on the 20th century (mainland and overseas) and on completing the surface pressure long series of the astronomic observatories useful for reanalyses projects (ACRE) Météo-France aims at improving the climatological heritage in reliable and usable series in France (mainland and overseas) and helps the climate data rescue in the old french colonies (EU-CIRCE, MEDARE).

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