Digitizing and archiving climate data from the Second World War could have a significant impact on datasets from the time period.
Digitizing and archiving climate data from the Second World War could have a significant impact on datasets from the time period.
Have you ever wondered how scientists are able to determine past weather, water, and climate conditions? In the time before weather satellites (pre-1960) and standardized large-scale observation networks, monitoring was relatively limited both on land and in the ocean. Observation was also heavily dependent on U.S. Naval vessels, which had a somewhat consistent presence on the seas as well as the necessary instrumentation.
Datasets for this pre-satellite era were created in the 1950s and 1960s, though significant uncertainties exist in instrumental marine weather datasets from the early 1900s (as noted by IPCC Assessment Reports five and six). The period from 1940–1945 in particular is likely affected by data artifacts (data flaws that can be caused by issues with instruments, techniques, or conditions) in U.S. Navy collections.Due to the scarcity of observations for this period, biases and artifacts in these data can cause major problems in reconstructing this part of the weather, water, and climate record.
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