WMO Updates Guidelines on Data Rescue to Safeguard Environmental Records

The World Meteorological Organization (WMO) has announced the update of its Guidelines on Good Practices for Data Rescue, a crucial effort involving the retrieval, organization, and preservation of recorded instrument observations and environmental data at risk of being lost.

Data rescue plays a pivotal role in ensuring that future generations of scientists and data users have access to essential information for assessing climate variability and change, as well as for providing various environmental services. These data serve to bridge the gap between historical records and present-day observations.

Recognizing the significance of long-term observations, WMO has established a mechanism to designate centennial observing stations, promoting sustainable observational standards and best practices to facilitate the generation of high-quality time series data.

The newly updated data rescue guidelines (WMO-No. 1182) build upon a 2016 technical document and incorporate the data rescue guidelines of the European Union Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S) as WMO Guidelines for Hydrological Data Rescue (WMO-No. 1146). These guidelines encompass the rescue of meteorological, hydrological, marine, and other environmental data.

They provide an overview of data rescue, emphasize its importance, and offer practical assistance on archiving original media, imaging, digitization, and archiving digital images and data. Additionally, fourteen appendices offer supporting information.

Peer Hechler, WMO Scientific Officer responsible for data rescue, highlights, "The validity of climate models and palaeoclimate data would greatly benefit from long instrumental time series in all regions of the world."

Omar Baddour, Chief of the Climate Monitoring and Policy Services Division, underscores the importance of extending the environmental record backwards in time and filling in temporal and spatial gaps, stating, "Such assessments can serve as input for policymakers to mitigate loss from environmental disasters and provide increased information for economic development."

The updated guidelines have undergone drafting and review by numerous experts from meteorological and academic communities globally, including National Meteorological and Hydrological Services, the Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S), the International Environmental Data Rescue Organization (IEDRO), and the Atmospheric Circulation Reconstructions over the Earth (ACRE). The WMO Secretariat expresses gratitude to all involved in this significant endeavor.