Databank effort

This page exists to document progress in creation of the international land meteorological databank under the auspices of a working group led by Jay Lawrimore.

Have data or a lead to data? Please email data.submission@surfacetemperatures.org

Want help in approaching data holders? Please feel free to use the data request cover letter.

Want to know what data is required and how to submit it? Please follow the data submission guidelines.

The databank is currently under construction with a version 1 release scheduled for early- to mid-2012. The development version is available from http://www.gosic.org/GLOBAL_SURFACE_DATABANK/GBD.html. Any data here are available for research use, but please be cautioned that until a full version release some changes to format are possible. Data is to be made available in four stages:

Stage 0: raw data image or information as to hard copy location
Stage 1: Data in native format provided
Stage 2: Data converted into a common format and with provenance and version control information appended
Stage 3: Merged collation of stage 2 data including merging / mingling of records for stations in multiple stage 2 decks.

Not all station records will have data back to stage 0 but all stations will contain provenance information to the extent that it can be uniquely ascertained. We are indebted to many individuals and organizations, not least members of the working group and associated task teams, for helping to collate available records and submit them to the databank.

A poster for presentation at the World Climate Research Program's Open Science Conference outlines the state of databank devlopment as of October 2011.

Marine surface data, necessary to characterize truly global changes, are available through http://icoads.noaa.gov/.

Databank Working Group Membership (as at 3/15/11)

Chair:
    Jay Lawrimore: NOAA National Climatic Data Center
WMO Region I:
    Albert Mhanda (ACMAD, Niger)
WMO Region II:
   Vyacheslav Razuvaev, Russian Research Institute of Hydrometeorological Information
   Koji Ishihara: Japan Meteorological Agency
WMO Region III
    Matilde Rusticucci: Univ. of Buenos Aires, Argentina
    Madeleine Renom: Universidad de la Republica, Montevideo, Uruguay
    Waldenio Gambi Almeida: Instituto Nacional de Pesquisas Espaciais, Centro de Previsão de Tempo e Estudos Climáticos, Brazil
WMO Region IV
    Matthew Menne: NOAA National Climatic Data Center
    Steve Worley: National Center for Atmospheric Research
    John Christy: University of Alabama Huntsville
WMO Region V
    Meghan Flannery: Australian Bureau of Meteorology
WMO Region VI
    Albert Klein-Tank: KNMI
    Bryan Lawrence: BADC, UK
    Jeremy Tandy: UK Met Office
    David Lister: CRU, UEA, UK
Ex-officio Member
    Peter Thorne: CICS-NC / NOAA NCDC

The databank group has a blog at http://globalsurfacedatabank.blogspot.com/ where all members can initiate posts and members of the public are allowed to comment but such comments will be moderated.

Working Group Documentation

Terms of reference (adopted 6/8/11, expire 6/8/13)