Volunteers who are “passionate about Irish weather, history and climate action” are being urged to help with the digitisation of historical weather records.
Met Éireann plans to digitise 3.5 million historic rainfall observations from 763 stations and members of the public are being invited to transcribe archived registers into digital format.
Converting the handwritten records from 1864 to 1951 will help researchers study changing rainfall patterns and improve the accuracy of climate projections.
“Volunteers will help preserve an important part of Ireland’s climate history, unlocking data collected by dedicated weather observers over many decades,” said climatologist Ciara Ryan, of Met Éireann.
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“This project is part of a larger data rescue initiative, which Met Éireann will undertake alongside other national partners to broaden our understanding of Ireland’s climate.”
The pilot phase of the Irish Weather Rescue Project has already seen 300 volunteers transcribing almost 10,000 months of historic observations, said Dr Rhonda McGovern, co-ordinator of the project.
“This is an online project that you can contribute to from your sofa or your kitchen table, anywhere in the world, so if you are passionate about Irish weather, history or climate action, visit irishweatherrescue.ie to join,” she said.
An online platform provides volunteers with access to images of the weather records and templates for transcribing the data.
Detail instructions, including an online video tutorial, are provided as well as an online discussion forum where volunteers can interact with the project team, Dr McGovern said.
Special measures are being put in place to ensure the accuracy of the transcriptions.
By improving the accuracy of future climate projections, the digitisation project will support national climate resilience policymaking and planning.
The digitised data will be made available to researchers and shared with national and international data repositories, Dr McGovern said.
