1. Climate Monitoring and Attribution Group, Met Office Hadley Centre,
What ACRE will do?
Dr Rob Allan,
ACRE Project Manager,
Climate Monitoring and Attribution Group,
Met Office Hadley Centre,
Exeter, Devon,
United Kingdom
QCCCE

2. What is ACRE?
ACRE is an international collaborative initiative led by a consortium of:
the Queensland Climate Change Centre of Excellence (QCCCE) in Australia
the Met Office Hadley Centre in the UK
the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Earth System Research Laboratory (ESRL) and Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences (CIRES) at the University of Colorado

3. for climate applications and impacts needs worldwide.
What will ACRE do?
Seamlessly:
Facilitate the recovery of historical instrumental surface terrestrial and marine global weather observations
to underpin 4D weather reconstructions (reanalyses) over the last years
for climate applications and impacts needs worldwide.
It will produce:
dynamically consistent, high resolution global historical 4D weather reconstructions at 2o latitude by 2o longitude spatial resolution every 6 hours using state-of-the-art scientific capabilities (in the future, 1/2o spatial resolution)
a baseline of 4D weather reconstructions that can be tailored and ‘downscaled’ for:
regional to local climate applications, e.g., agricultural, environmental, societal, physical
climate impacts, e.g., risk of high impact phenomena
direct weather input into biophysical and production models
an historical baseline of global weather that can be used to constrain global climate models, putting them in a much stronger position to look into the future at possible implications and impacts of climate change.

4. applications & impacts community needs & direct feed into
Three surface input only historical reanalyses generating 6-hourly 4D atmospheric weather variables
20th Century Reanalysis Project: 1891-present (supported in US by NOAA & DoE)
Surface Input Reanalysis for Climate Applications (SIRCA) (1840s-2011)
North Atlantic-European Region: 1750-present
Climate research,
applications & impacts
community needs
& direct feed into
biophysical models O L D W E A T H R
Ecological
Phenological
Health & Disease
Reinsurance
Climate Monitoring
Model Validation
Global historical surface
daily to sub-daily
weather observations
Environmental Assessments
Extremes, Impacts & Risks
Water resources
Agricultural
Forestry
Energy
Marine operations
Fisheries
Cultural landscapes &
built heritage
and downscaling
QCCCE

5. Climate Science Research Climate Applications, Impacts & Risk
USERS
Climate Science Research
Climate Applications, Impacts & Risk
Direct feed into Biophysical Models
Constraining GCMs
Educational Needs
The General Public

6. HISTORICAL GLOBAL TERRESTRIAL & MARINE SURFACE WEATHER DATA
Recovery, Imaging, Digitisation and Archiving

7. ATMOSPHERIC CIRCULATION RECONSTRUCTIONS
DATA RESCUE
(MEDARE MedCLIVAR IEDRO SIGN)
ATMOSPHERIC CIRCULATION RECONSTRUCTIONS
OVER THE EARTH
NATIONAL
METEOROLOGICAL
SERVICES
(ECSN, ETCCDI, VACS, CMA,
MeteoFrance)
GLOBE
TERRESTRIAL DATA
MARINE DATA R E C L A I M
NCDC
CDMP
GCOS AOPC/OOPC
Surface Pressure Working Group
International Surface Pressure Data Bank
ftp://ftp.cdc.noaa.gov/pub/Public/gcompo/ISPDv2.2/
ftp://ftp.ncdc.noaa.gov/pub/ispd/v2.2/Station_Map/
ICOADS
HISTORICAL CLIMATE QUALITY REANALYSES

8. AS MUCH SURFACE DATA HASN’T BEEN DIGITISED AS HAS BEEN’
Data needs for ACRE-facilitated Historical Reanalyses of 4D weather conditions
Digitised Global Surface Observational Coverage (%)
ERA & NCEP
POTENTIAL
COVERAGE
World War 2
World War 1
NCEP & ERA reanalyses need surface, upper air & satellite data
=> only since 1948, problems with data coverage & quality
Global historical reanalyses using only surface observations (MSLP & SST) => 2-3 times longer temporal coverage downscaled for regional climate applications needs
20th Century Reanalysis Project => ongoing, from 1892-present
Extension back to 1850 globally
Extension back to 1750/1800 with focus on the North Atlantic-European region
Major terrestrial & marine surface observations digitisation is underway to support historical reanalyses with priority in the Southern Hemisphere => vast data potential that has not been tapped
‘PRIOR TO WORLD WAR 2,
AS MUCH SURFACE DATA HASN’T BEEN DIGITISED AS HAS BEEN’

9. Activities in recovering, imaging and digitising historical marine and terrestrial observations
2007/2009: English East India Company (EIC) logbooks (1780s-1830s) – held in the British Library (imaging by British Library, digitised by CDMP in US) 900 of the 2,000 logs have instrumental data [200K images]
2008/2009: Extended World War 1 period logbooks ( ) - held in the UK National Archives (imaging by UK National Archives) 7,000 to 8,000 logs [300K+ images]
2007/2009: Printed/published logbooks of late 19th- early 20th Century Antarctic expeditions plus ships of exploration – online plus held in the Met Office Library & Archives (imaging & digitisation)
2008: Inventory of historical Chinese and South China Sea instrumental weather observations - an initiative in conjunction with Professor Robert Bickers, Department of Historical Studies, Bristol University and Chinese Maritime Customs Project, to produce an inventory of all the sources of historical Chinese and South China Sea region terrestrial and marine daily to sub-daily meteorological data.
2008: Inventory of British hydrographic and survey vessel remarks books ( ) – held at the UK Hydrographic Office (UKHO) (inventory of holdings in the archives of the UKHO) about 6,000 remarks books
2009: CoRRal: UK Colonial registers and Royal Naval Logbooks – held at The National Archives (imaging and digitising logbooks of ships on voyages of discovery : ADM-55, and attached to the Hydrographic Survey ) plus held at The National Archives and the Met Office Archives (UK colonial meteorological registers, journals and gazettes 1840-present). CoRRal: a Joint Information Systems Committee (JISC) Digitisation Programme: Enriching Digital Resources funded project.

11. PROJECTED/POTENTIAL TIMELINE
2009: The 20th Century Reanalysis Project: 1891 to present
Version 1: : Available – we have a terabyte disc of ensemble means
Version 2: available Autumn-2009
2009: British East India Company (EIC) logbooks (1780s-1830s) Imaged & Digitised
2010: Final version of HadISST2
: Extended World War 1 period logbooks ( ) Imaged & Digitised
: Surface Input Reanalysis for Climate Applications (SIRCA) (with DoE and NOAA support)
Version 3: early/mid-19th – 21st century
would need all data by September-October 2010
improved version of NCEP model at higher resolution
=> hurricanes, high impact phenomena?
potentially available in 2012
201?: British hydrographic and survey vessel remarks books ( ) Imaging & Digitisation
201?: North Atlantic-European Region mid18th-early 19th Century Reanalysis: 1750/1800 to present

12. ACRE Project Manager Dr Rob Allan Climate Monitoring and Attribution Group, Met Office Hadley Centre Alternative ACRE WWW Site: Old Weather WWW Site: Phone: +44 (0) Fax: +44 (0) Address: Met Office FitzRoy Road Exeter EX1 3PB U.K.