Transcribing Historical Canadian Weather Data: the Smithsonian Records

TitleTranscribing Historical Canadian Weather Data: the Smithsonian Records

BackgroundECCC’s Climate Research Division is conducting an ongoing innovative project to organize, structure and transcribe Canadian historical meteorological observations from imaged archival records. This is a necessary and preparatory step toward the creation of a traceable and transparent numerical historical database for climatic analysis, including for establishing a baseline from which to assess how the climate has changed.  This project builds upon earlier work that started with the development of an inventory of the first North American volunteer weather observations based on records coordinated by the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, DC, USA. Over five thousand documents were discovered. The tasks of analyzing each of the documents for data structure and keying in over eleven million observations are immense and manually intensive.  A subsequent more detailed survey identified approximately 2250 image files with recoverable data from 12 priority stations in Canada over the period 1839 to 1885, based on the recommended priority stations. This amounts to an estimated 645,000 observations. Also, based on this survey, nine printed weather register formats were identified, with between 2 and 23 meteorological variables recorded per register type. A number of registers did not conform to standard types and were recorded according to the individual style of the weather observer. A database describing the meteorological information and frequency of observation contained in each register type was subsequently designed. Also, the elements necessary to give each image a unique id filename containing sufficient relevant metadata to enable a transparent and traceable data rescue process was defined. Using these elements, the image files were renamed with unique ids containing this metadata information. The data and metadata are set to follow the SEF (station exchange format) file format and international standard “ISO 19115”, respectively (see Tasks below for more details). Two of the longest data series in Canada’s west and north, the Red River Settlement (76 months, over a period from 1844 to 1861) and York Factory (112 months, from 1874 to 1884), were recently transcribed following this format and standards. ECCC’s Climate Research Division is seeking scientific services to continue the transcription of the Canadian historical meteorological observations from imaged archival records from the 19th century U.S. Smithsonian Volunteer Meteorological Observers network into the prescribed format and standard. 3.0 Objective The objective is to transcribe the recommended priority stations in the Canadian historical meteorological observations from imaged archival records from the 19th century U.S. Smithsonian Volunteer Meteorological Observers network. The first set of priority stations are Winnipeg, Red River Settlement, Michipocoton and Wolfville; the next set of priority stations are Amherstburg, Hamilton, Harbour Grace, Fort Simpson, Rigolet, Stanbridge, St John (New Brunswick), St John’s (Caswell) and St John’s (Delaney).