cc: "Juckes, MN \(Martin\)" <M.N.Juckes@rl.ac.uk>, "Yvan Biot" <Y-Biot@dfid.gov.uk>, "Tim Sumner" <T-Sumner@dfid.gov.uk>, "George McLaughlin" <g-mclaughlin@dfid.gov.uk>, <efernandes@worldbank.org>, <p.jones@uea.ac.uk>, "William Westermeyer" <WWestermeyer@wmo.int>, <manola.brunet@urv.cat>, <mavalente@fc.ul.pt>, <rmtrigo@fc.ul.pt>, "Rick Crouthamel" <r.crouthamel@iedro.org>
date: Thu, 22 May 2008 09:45:35 +0100
from: "Mike McCarthy" <M-McCarthy@dfid.gov.uk>
subject: RE: DFID funding for climate data digitisation
to: "Rob Allan" <rob.allan@metoffice.gov.uk>

Thanks.  DFID bars access to some of these sites.  The whole point of
ClimDev is to manage data, research and funding centrally and to oversee
and coordinate as appropriate, work on CC adaptation and risk management
through AU member state development programmes.  ACPC and ClimDev will
establish links to most if not all relevant institutions - particularly
in Africa.  In keeping the money in a central location under the control
of ACPC and ClimDev, we should ensure that partners are guided towards
ACPC and that they are aware of and engaged with, what is being done.
You will need to await the next stages of ClimDev development and engage
with them.  I am the wrong person to deal with your e-mails as my
priorities relate to setting up ClimDev within the UNECA, AUC and AfDB.


Regards.

Mike 

-----Original Message-----
From: Rob Allan [mailto:rob.allan@metoffice.gov.uk] 
Sent: 22 May 2008 11:29
To: Mike McCarthy
Cc: Juckes, MN (Martin); Yvan Biot; Tim Sumner; George McLaughlin;
efernandes@worldbank.org; p.jones@uea.ac.uk; William Westermeyer;
manola.brunet@urv.cat; mavalente@fc.ul.pt; rmtrigo@fc.ul.pt; Rick
Crouthamel
Subject: RE: DFID funding for climate data digitisation

Mike,
     Thanks for that perspective, and I appreciate the situation and how
you are looking to develop things with African needs and CLIMDEV in
mind.

     Taking a step back, there is a need (maybe it's already planned?)
for CLIMDEV to be fully aware of, and work with, all of the existing
projects and data rescue efforts that are digitising old African
colonial through to contemporary records.  Keeping in mind, as Martin
notes, that these projects, including ACRE, have to work extremely hard
to set up and keep such digitisation activities going.  Most are
extremely fragile in terms of both personnel and funds.  Nevertheless,
they are doing what digitisation they can - all be it at a pace and
scope that is generally sub-optimal. In addition, it must be remembered
that though international bodies such as WMO, GCOS, GEO and the like do
provide 'umbrellas' that support a few of the digitisation efforts, they
generally have no significant funds to pay for the costs of imaging and
digitisation.

     Thus, one thing that really needs to be coordinated in conjunction
with CLIMDEV and all the African Meteorological Services etc is the
scope of the various existing digitisation efforts for Africa - what
these efforts have done, are doing, and plan doing.  Otherwise, there is
the risk of duplication of efforts and just plain lack of knowledge
about what actually exists and is happening etc.

     It was most surprising at the first MEDARE (MEditerranean climate
DAta REscue) meeting in Spain late last year, where representatives of
most National Meteorological Services around the Mediterranean attended,
to see their general shock at what existed in the way of scanned old
colonial records for their countries on just the NOAA Central Library
WWW site!!  I suspect that it would be even more shocking to the rest of
the African countries.

     The following is a listing of the main data rescue, imaging,
digitising and archiving projects that I'm aware of which have a focus
on some part or parts of Africa.

ACRE - I've already sent you a detailed breakdown of what we're doing.

MEDARE - MEditerranean climate DAta REscue
(http://www.omm.urv.cat/MEDARE-workshop-outcomes/index-medare-
initiative.html#atitol) brings together scientists from universities,
research centres and other international climate-related institutions
and projects together with experts and climatologists from the National
Meteorological and Hydrological Services in the Greater Mediterranean
Region (GMR) [INCLUDING NORTH AFRICA]. The long-term goal of the project
is to develop a comprehensive high quality instrumental climate dataset
for the GMR with a focus on the Essential Climate Variables (ECV) of the
Global Climate Observing System (GCOS).  Such a dataset will support and
improve our ability to monitor, detect and predict climate variability
and change at regional and national levels, thereby allowing countries
of the region to develop robust strategies for managing climate related
risks and adapting to climate change.

SIGN - Signatures of environmental change in the geophysical institutes
project; aims to recover the 19th and 20th century data collected by
their Geophysical Institutes and National Meteorological Service,
including data from their former African [eg. SAO TOME, ANGOLA,
MOZAMBIQUE] and Asian colonies.

IEDRO - International Environmental Data Rescue Organization
http://www.iedro.com/  -  have ongoing data rescue projects in a number
of countries in Africa and South America, and have worked closely with
US agencies such as Climate Database Modernization Program (CDMP).  They
are working closely with African meterological services to recover and
digitise upper air observations from KENYA, MALAWI, MOZAMBIQUE, NIGER,
SENEGAL and ZAMBIA. 

CIRCE -  Climate change and Impact Research: the Mediterranean
Environment, an ongoing EU FP-6 project with North African partners from
TUNISIA, ALGERIA and EGYPT is undetaking some historical daily to
monthly temperature and precipation digitisation.

     I think, at the very least, there is a need for closer links and
greater rapour between CLIMDEV, the African meteorological community and
the specific international projects involved with the digitisation of
meteorological data from Africa.

                                     Cheers,  Rob.
--
Dr Rob Allan,
ACRE Project Manager,
Climate Monitoring and Attribution Group, Met Office Hadley Centre.
E-mail: rob.allan@metoffice.gov.uk
ACRE WWW Page:  http://brohan.org/hadobs/acre/acre.html
Alternative E-mail:  allarob@googlemail.com
Phone:  +44 (0)1392 886904     
Fax:    +44 (0)1392 885681     
International phone:    +44 1392 886552
Address:  Met Office
FitzRoy Road
Exeter
EX1 3PB
United Kingdom


On Thu, 2008-05-22 at 06:43 +0100, Mike McCarthy wrote:
> I have passed the earlier E-mails to UNECA and will forward this one 
> too.  UNECA on behalf on the AUC, will be responsible and accountable 
> for ClimDev when it is up and running.  Any funding donors may provide

> should be via the Africa Climate Policy Centre (ACPC).  This alone 
> would not rule out DFID support, but I am trying to keep everything 
> together and under African control.  If, when ACPC gets going, they 
> say they need what you are offering - amongst all of the other 
> priorities they may have - then we could (no commitment from DFID) 
> either pass the money to ACPC so that they can engage with you, or 
> provide the funding direct but with ACPC oversight.  The most likely 
> scenario if we were to support this, would be for us to pass the money

> to ACPC and let them deal directly with you.
>  
> But at this stage, when climate change is causing massive problems in 
> Africa and we are trying to raise sufficient funding to get ClimDev 
> off the ground, digitisation seems to be of a lower priority than 
> other issues.
>  
> Mike
> 
> 
> ______________________________________________________________________
> From: Juckes, MN (Martin) [mailto:M.N.Juckes@rl.ac.uk]
> Sent: 21 May 2008 19:00
> To: Mike McCarthy; Yvan Biot; Tim Sumner
> Cc: Rob Allan; George McLaughlin
> Subject: RE: DFID funding for climate data digitisation
> 
> 
> 
> Hello Mike,
> 
>  
> 
> I hope I can answer some of your questions. My interest in digitising 
> data was prompted by meeting people involved in climate adaption 
> planning who did not know what the natural range of climate 
> variability in their region was. This was at a meeting organised by 
> the IPCC Task Group on Data and Scenario Support for Impact and 
> Climate Analysis. Informed decisions about climate change cannot be 
> made if the local climate is not known. In this sense, the past 
> climate record is more like part of the navigation system than the 
> deck chairs (I hope we shouldn't take your metaphor too literally and 
> that we all accept that there is still a clear case for supporting 
> adaptive planning rather than dropping everything in favour of 
> emergency measures).
> 
>  
> 
> The current observing system in Africa does feed into the global, 
> digital system. There are clearly problems and gaps there too, but 
> that would be covered by operational meteorology forecasting budgets.
> 
>  
> 
> The focus here on colonial datasets is because this is data which has 
> been collected and archived in the UK, and for which the UK is 
> currently responsible.
> 
>  
> 
> Rob Allan at the UK Met Office is involved in a global effort to 
> digitise as much historical  as possible (see 
> http://brohan.org/hadobs/acre/acre.html). He does not, however, at 
> present have any funding to deal with the large collection of records 
> that this project would deal with.
> 
>  
> 
> We have not attempted to cost the project as yet because I first 
> wanted to find out what, if any, funding might be available and how we

> should design the project and its outcomes to best match the 
> priorities of any funding source,
> 
>  
> 
> Cheers,
> 
> Martin
> 
>  
> 
> From: Mike McCarthy [mailto:M-McCarthy@dfid.gov.uk]
> Sent: 21 May 2008 14:44
> To: Yvan Biot; Tim Sumner
> Cc: Juckes, MN (Martin); Rob Allan; George McLaughlin
> Subject: RE: DFID funding for climate data digitisation
> 
> 
>  
> 
> Thanks Yvan, I will inform the potential ACPC people in UNECA.  I must

> say though that digitising data from the colonial times seems a bit 
> like arranging deck chairs on a sinking ship.  Apart from this 
> personal and uninformed observation about which element of data work 
> should have a higher priority over another, and also not wishing to 
> offend anyone by such a knee-jerk reaction, it would surely need to 
> fit within a digitisation process where eventually all data would be 
> digitised.  It seems to me that at this stage in Africa, we have some 
> way to go before this would be a burning issue.  Wouldn't it be of 
> more interest for the Met Office to do this?  Also, there is no 
> mention of how much this would cost or what added advantages would 
> arise.  My uninformed instinct would also be to ask whether more 
> recent records in Africa are in a digitised form and being well used.
> 
>  
> 
> I note that Mr Juckes is from a university and Mt Allan from the Met 
> Office.  I am sure ACPC would welcome collaboration in due course as 
> they will need to engage with centres of excellence in order to 
> enhance their capacity and build international credibility.
> 
>  
> 
> Mike
> 
>  
> 
>                                    
> ______________________________________________________________________
> 
> From: Yvan Biot
> Sent: 21 May 2008 16:05
> To: Mike McCarthy; Tim Sumner
> Cc: M.N.Juckes@rl.ac.uk; Rob Allan; George McLaughlin
> Subject: FW: DFID funding for climate data digitisation
> 
> Mike, Tim,
> 
>  
> 
> please see below regarding an initiative in climate-data digitisation.
> This is exactly the kind of effort that we would like CLIMDEV to 
> engage in, and I therefore advised Rob and Martin to also get in touch

> with you about this.
> 
>  
> 
> Kind regards,
> 
>  
> 
> Yvan
> 
>  
> 
> 
> Dr Ir Yvan Biot
> 
>  
> 
> Senior Policy Advisor - Climate Change
> 
> Policy and Research Division
> 
> DFID
> 
>  
> 
> 1 Palace Street
> 
> London SW1E 5HE
> 
>  
> 
> tel: + 44 20 7023 1138 / + 44 20 8776 6807 (fridays)
> 
> fax: + 44 20 7023 0719
> 
> Mob: 07824 864 523
> 
>  
> 
> 
>  
> 
>                                    
> ______________________________________________________________________
> 
> From: Juckes, MN (Martin) [mailto:M.N.Juckes@rl.ac.uk]
> Sent: 16 May 2008 16:38
> To: Anna Ballance; George McLaughlin; John Barrett
> Cc: Yvan Biot
> Subject: RE: DFID funding for climate data digitisation
> 
> Dear Anna, George and John,
> 
>  
> 
> Yvan (see below) suggested that I contact you about possible funding 
> for climate data digitisation. I am interested in this through my work

> with the IPCC Data Distribution Centre (DDC: www.ipcc-data.org). The 
> idea would be to digitise data from colonial weather stations 
> currently held at the UK Met Office, in collaboration with Rob Allan's

> group at the Met Office. Some preliminary work will be needed to 
> assess the scope of the available records. The resulting digitised 
> data would be made available through the Met Office archive and also 
> through the DDC.
> 
>  
> 
> Such data will be important to policy makers and researchers in 
> countries whose own climate data records are too short to adequately 
> describe their own climate.
> 
>  
> 
> I'd be grateful if you could tell me what funding opportunities there 
> might be,
> 
>  
> 
> Sincerely,
> 
> Martin Juckes
> 
>  
> 
> From: Yvan Biot [mailto:Y-Biot@dfid.gov.uk]
> Sent: 14 April 2008 09:37
> To: Juckes, MN (Martin)
> Cc: Anna Ballance; George McLaughlin; John Barrett
> Subject: RE: DFID funding for climate data digitisation
> 
> 
>  
> 
> Martin, thanks you for your email. This does indeed sound interesting.
> There are a couple of DFID groups that could be interested by what you

> talk about: (i) Anna Balance and George McLaughlin, who lead on our 
> research programme, of which the next 'instalment' will be launched 
> fairly soon (ii) John Barett who leads on work on a climate centre.
> Suggest you contact Anna, George and John some time soon-ish to find 
> out how what you have on offer might fit in their plans. Please do 
> keep me in the loop. Kind regards, Yvan
> 
>  
> 
> 
> Dr Ir Yvan Biot
> 
>  
> 
> Senior Policy Advisor - Climate Change
> 
> Policy and Research Division
> 
> DFID
> 
>  
> 
> 1 Palace Street
> 
> London SW1E 5HE
> 
>  
> 
> tel: + 44 20 7023 1138 / + 44 20 8776 6807 (fridays)
> 
> fax: + 44 20 7023 0719
> 
> Mob: 07824 864 523
> 
>  
> 
> 
>  
> 
>                                    
> ______________________________________________________________________
> 
> From: Juckes, MN (Martin) [mailto:M.N.Juckes@rl.ac.uk]
> Sent: 11 April 2008 16:19
> To: Yvan Biot
> Subject: DFID funding for climate data digitisation
> 
> Dear Yvan,
> 
>  
> 
> I attended the Royal Meteorological Society meeting on climate change 
> at which you spoke, on Feb. 20th. You mentioned the possibility of 
> funding being available to support work relevant to climate and 
> development. As manager of the IPCC Data Distribution Centre
> (www.ipcc-data.org) I have become very aware of the demand, in 
> developing countries,  for longer observational data records. The 
> library of the UK Met Office has a substantial volume of such data on 
> paper, and if we could get funding, myself and colleagues at the Met 
> Office would like to make this available in digitised form.
> 
>  
> 
> We would be most grateful if you could let us know of any opportunity 
> to bid for such funds,
> 
>  
> 
> Sincerely,
> 
> Martin Juckes
> 
> 
> ______________________________________________________________________
> __ This e-mail has been scanned for all viruses by Star. The service 
> is powered by MessageLabs. For more information on a proactive 
> anti-virus service working around the clock, around the globe, visit:
> http://www.star.net.uk
> ______________________________________________________________________
> __
> 
> DFID, the Department for International Development: leading the 
> British government's fight against world poverty. For more information

> subscribe to our e-bulletin at http://www.dfid.gov.uk/feedback/ 
> ______________________________________________________________________
> 
> This e-mail has been scanned for all viruses by Peapod. The service is

> powered by MessageLabs. For more information on a proactive anti-virus

> service working around the clock, around the globe, visit:
> http://www.peapod.co.uk/cleanmail
> 
> 
> ______________________________________________________________________
> __ This e-mail has been scanned for all viruses by Star. The service 
> is powered by MessageLabs. For more information on a proactive 
> anti-virus service working around the clock, around the globe, visit:
> http://www.star.net.uk
> ______________________________________________________________________
> __
> 
> DFID, the Department for International Development: leading the 
> British government's fight against world poverty. For more information

> subscribe to our e-bulletin at http://www.dfid.gov.uk/feedback/ 
> ______________________________________________________________________
> 
> This e-mail has been scanned for all viruses by Peapod. The service is

> powered by MessageLabs. For more information on a proactive anti-virus

> service working around the clock, around the globe, visit:
> http://www.peapod.co.uk/cleanmail
> 
> 
> 
> ______________________________________________________________________
> __ This e-mail has been scanned for all viruses by Star. The service 
> is powered by MessageLabs. For more information on a proactive 
> anti-virus service working around the clock, around the globe, visit:
> http://www.star.net.uk
> ______________________________________________________________________
> __
> 
> DFID, the Department for International Development: leading the 
> British government's fight against world poverty. For more information

> subscribe to our e-bulletin at http://www.dfid.gov.uk/feedback/ 
> ______________________________________________________________________
> 
> This e-mail has been scanned for all viruses by Peapod. The service is

> powered by MessageLabs. For more information on a proactive anti-virus

> service working around the clock, around the globe, visit:
> http://www.peapod.co.uk/cleanmail
--
Dr Rob Allan,
ACRE Project Manager,
Climate Monitoring and Attribution Group, Met Office Hadley Centre.
E-mail: rob.allan@metoffice.gov.uk
ACRE WWW Page:  http://brohan.org/hadobs/acre/acre.html
Alternative E-mail:  allarob@googlemail.com
Phone:  +44 (0)1392 886904     
Fax:    +44 (0)1392 885681     
International phone:    +44 1392 886552
Address:  Met Office
FitzRoy Road
Exeter
EX1 3PB
United Kingdom

________________________________________________________________________
This e-mail has been scanned for all viruses by Star. The service is
powered by MessageLabs. For more information on a proactive anti-virus
service working around the clock, around the globe, visit:
http://www.star.net.uk
________________________________________________________________________

DFID, the Department for International Development: leading the British government's fight against world poverty. For more information subscribe to our e-bulletin at http://www.dfid.gov.uk/feedback/
______________________________________________________________________

This e-mail has been scanned for all viruses by Peapod. The
service is powered by MessageLabs. For more information on a proactive
anti-virus service working around the clock, around the globe, visit:
http://www.peapod.co.uk/cleanmail
