Historical weather data is needed to help people across the climate-vulnerable continent better understand and adapt to the climate crisis.
Researchers at Maynooth University’s ICARUS Climate Research Centre have a launched a new project to digitise historical African weather data and they’re looking for volunteers to get involved.
The dataset includes some 4m images of data records from 43 African countries, which were first rescued in the 1980s by the African Centre of Meteorological Applications for Development (ACMAD), the Royal Meteorological Institute of Belgium and the World Meteorological Organisation. The images were saved onto microfilm and microfiche. It is believed the paper records were then destroyed.
In 2021, the EU’s Copernicus Climate Change Service converted the data to electronic images to prevent them being lost due to decaying film and fiche.
However, the images are of varying quality and it is unclear where and when some data was obtained.
“Before we can transcribe the data, we need to separate the images that are readable from those that are unreadable,” says ICARUS PhD researcher Kevin Healion, who is involved in the project.
“We also need to make sure that the station name, month and year of observation are recorded, otherwise rescuing the data will be all but impossible. Once we know which images are usable and where and when they were taken, we can start the process of rescue.”
The project, which is supported by the Irish Centre for High-End Computing, is being launched on Zooniverse, a global platform that connects professional researchers with volunteers.
“Rescuing African weather data is vitally important if we are to better understand climate change in this very climate-vulnerable region of the world,” said ICARUS director Prof Peter Thorne.
The ability to analyse historical weather data is vital in the efforts to estimate, mitigate and adapt to the climate crisis. However, globally, there are billions of weather observations from the last 300 years that are not available in a machine-readable format and are at risk of being lost forever, the project team said.
“In places like Africa, access to historical weather data is particularly poor with large parts of the continent having no available weather data at all currently available to researchers.
“Making historical data available from Africa will enable better understanding and certainty about how the climate is changing across the continent.”
If you want to volunteer to help classify the data, visit the Weather Archive Africa project website.
In September, ICARUS and Met Éireann released a new rapid high-temperature attribution analysis to provide quick insights on Ireland’s changing climate.
Researchers found that the night-time temperatures that made summer 2025 the hottest on record in Ireland were 40 times more likely because of human-caused climate change.
This article originally appeared on www.siliconrepublic.com and can be found here.
Researchers at Maynooth University’s ICARUS Climate Research Centre have a launched a new project to digitise historical African weather data and they’re looking for volunteers to get involved.
The dataset includes some 4m images of data records from 43 African countries, which were first rescued in the 1980s by the African Centre of Meteorological Applications for Development (ACMAD), the Royal Meteorological Institute of Belgium and the World Meteorological Organisation. The images were saved onto microfilm and microfiche. It is believed the paper records were then destroyed.
In 2021, the EU’s Copernicus Climate Change Service converted the data to electronic images to prevent them being lost due to decaying film and fiche.
However, the images are of varying quality and it is unclear where and when some data was obtained.
“Before we can transcribe the data, we need to separate the images that are readable from those that are unreadable,” says ICARUS PhD researcher Kevin Healion, who is involved in the project.
“We also need to make sure that the station name, month and year of observation are recorded, otherwise rescuing the data will be all but impossible. Once we know which images are usable and where and when they were taken, we can start the process of rescue.”
The project, which is supported by the Irish Centre for High-End Computing, is being launched on Zooniverse, a global platform that connects professional researchers with volunteers.
“Rescuing African weather data is vitally important if we are to better understand climate change in this very climate-vulnerable region of the world,” said ICARUS director Prof Peter Thorne.
The ability to analyse historical weather data is vital in the efforts to estimate, mitigate and adapt to the climate crisis. However, globally, there are billions of weather observations from the last 300 years that are not available in a machine-readable format and are at risk of being lost forever, the project team said.
“In places like Africa, access to historical weather data is particularly poor with large parts of the continent having no available weather data at all currently available to researchers.
“Making historical data available from Africa will enable better understanding and certainty about how the climate is changing across the continent.”
If you want to volunteer to help classify the data, visit the Weather Archive Africa project website.
In September, ICARUS and Met Éireann released a new rapid high-temperature attribution analysis to provide quick insights on Ireland’s changing climate.
Researchers found that the night-time temperatures that made summer 2025 the hottest on record in Ireland were 40 times more likely because of human-caused climate change.
This article originally appeared on www.siliconrepublic.com and can be found here.
