Guidelines on Best Practices for Climate Data Rescue

Abstract

This technical document is an update of WMO/TD-1210, WCDMP-55, Guidelines on Climate Data Rescue (2004). It builds on the original Guidelines, while taking into account both changes in technology that have occurred in the intervening 12 years and lessons learned in more recent climate data rescue activities around the world. An overview of data rescue is presented with chapters on its importance, archiving original media, imaging, digitization and archiving digital images and digital data. Twelve appendices provide supporting information. The Guidelines on Climate Data Rescue are intended to provide guidance in the form of recommended best practices. Because of the diversity of National Meteorological and Hydrological Services (NMHS) with respect to the size and stage of technological development, along with the variability of weather types and climate, some practices may not be useful for every WMO Member. That being said, the Guidelines cover a wide range of guidance that should provide assistance on how to organize and implement data rescue and provide generalized technological solutions for every Member. More specific technological information, as well as informative illustrations and photos, may be found at the International Data Rescue (I-DARE) portal that is maintained by WMO with the assistance of the Royal Netherlands Meteorological Institute and the WMO Commission of Climatology Expert Team on Data Rescue. While specific to weather and climate data, these best practices could also be applied to the rescue of data in other scientific fields, both within the remit of WMO and beyond. In particular, the rescue of hydrological, marine and other environmental data follows similar overall principles and practices and is basically considered to be within the scope of these Guidelines. Specificities of such data, however, need to be identified and taken into account in close collaboration with the respective communities, including, for example, the WMO Commission for Hydrology and the WMO–Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission (UNESCO) Joint Technical Commission for Oceanography and Marine Meteorology