West Indian Ocean data rescue

 World Meteorological Organization (WMO) launched the Indian Ocean Data Rescue Initiative (INDARE) in order to accelerate recovering of climate records and to improve the quality of climate datasets from Indian Ocean area.

In 2017, following the request from WMO, Météo-France developed a Data Rescue implementation plan for the recovery of climate records from Madagascar, involving both meteorological service of  Madagascar(DGM) and Météo-France.

 A first work of searching and analysing led to recovering, sorting and cataloguing the digital publications available on line, containing historical meteorological observations for Madagascar, Mayotte and Comores over the period  1889-1960.

Catalogue of publications  available   in the file: METFR_Publications_meteo_obs_Madagascar.pdf

In 2017, in a framework of a partnership between Météo-France and the French National Archives (Archives nationales),

33 boxes of climate hard-copy archives related to West Indian Ocean over the period 1864-1961, originating from the historical Collection of the French meteorological services, have been made available to Météo-France.

Météo-France quickly started several tasks like preserving, restoring, inventorying and then imaging

of monthly reports of 26 meteorological stations over the period 1947-1961.

Master image inventory in the file:

Master_Image_Inventory_FRAN_Madagascar_dependencies_1864-1962_2018-06-12.xls

Objectives of the project : inventorying of hardcopy archives, imaging  of  selection of documents (pre-1918 records  and monthly climate reports 1947-1961),  sharing ressources with other meteorological servicesand with international projects. Digitisation of  French data (Le Réunion, Mayotte, Europa, Tromelin).

Digitisation of data was set up in 2018: Two daily precipitation series  in La  Réunion  1900-1931

The project  will continue in 2019